Designing an effective information architecture (

What?

Why?

Who?

When?

How?

Tools

Brings together content, objects, size, scalability, taxonomy, metadata, navigation

High-level planning ◦ Don‟t get too detailed

Very often neglected

It‟s NEVER OVER

Risks if you don‟t◦ Decreased usability/findability◦ Performance/reliability issues◦ Lack of user adoption◦ Future enhancements can be costly

Benefits if you do◦ Consistency, usability,

reliability, security

Good architecture = Good experience

◦ IA Design◦ Planning Management◦ Infrastructure/Storage◦ Metadata◦ Content Types◦ Social◦ Navigation & View◦ Security & Auditing◦ Taxonomies (Closed or Open)◦ Search (Managed Properties, Scopes, Search Centers)◦ Identify & Create Records (Legal Requirements)◦ Retention & Holds (Litigation) ◦ Importing Information (Batch Loads)◦ Rich Media

Up front: Create at least a basic plan as soon as possible.◦ Costs increase exponentially over time.

As you progress, implement iteratively

Treat it like governance◦ Meet regularly

◦ What has changed?

◦ What works/doesn‟t work anymore.

Invite◦ Stakeholders must be involved

◦ Not too many

Listen◦ Understand requirements (audience, legal, etc.)

◦ What do you mean by that?

◦ Keep an open ear for metadata

Visualize◦ Existing environment

◦ Card sorts/whiteboard

Communicate◦ Options

◦ Pros and cons (there is always a trade-off, no „cake and eat it too‟)

Agree◦ Build a consensus

◦ Get it in writing

◦ Stick to it

Execute

•Who „owns‟ this

information?

Owners

•How is your site

organized now?

(like it or not, folks

are used to it)

Topology

•Who/how will

contribute?

Authors

•Who will be

retrieving your

information?

Customers

•Why does it need

to be stored?

Business Need

•How does it need

to be secured?

Security

•Who will maintain

the information?

Administrators

•What needs to be

stored?

•What is the

lifecycle?

Content

Control

What is the cost of not finding information?

If it isn‟t available, how important is it?

Can the audience contribute to the architecture? (Open vs. Closed)

Structure

Cost of creating content vs. finding content

Scalability◦ Limits – Number of site collections, items in a list query

limits, total items, overall database performance.

Usability/Findability◦ Two ways to get to data:

Search = Metadata

Navigate = Visualization

Manageability◦ Authoring experience

◦ Distribution

◦ Centrality

◦ Empower authors/content managers

Security◦ Granularity vs. Performance Permissions need to be checked for all objects being

rendered

Granular permissions can be a nightmare

Design Resiliency◦ Under-plan: Won‟t survive the current solution.◦ Over-plan: Won‟t survive the next solution (e.g. too many

content types)◦ Balance of priorities, volatility, and what „can be known‟◦ Future flexibility vs. current needs – Focus on building a

solution for general flexibility, rather than trying to identify every possibility.

Realize it will be wrong ◦ It has to be, because you can‟t possibly know

everything

◦ Communicate that expectation

Get it as good as you can for today, with flexibility for tomorrow.

Plan to fix it over time

Hierarchy◦ formally ranked group: an organization or group

whose members are arranged in ranks, e.g. in ranks of power and seniority

◦ Hierarchy Approches

Business Unit – Easiest, but dangerous

Functional – Domain (Role) e.g. HR - Employee forms vs. Manager forms

Hybrid – Business may be needed, but structure the architecture so that it can „flex‟ to a different model.

Taxonomy

◦ grouping of organisms: the science of classifying plants, animals, and microorganisms into increasingly broader categories based on shared features.

◦ Taxonomy Approaches Departmental = Easy to store (creators) Functional = Easy to retrieve (consumers) A natural, healthy, conflict between the two

◦ At what level is it useful? Think of our buddies up there: Do we need to classify them

as “Rabbit”? It depends! Hierarchy/content determines taxonomy…

Taxonomy vs. “Folksonomy”◦ Taxonomy = Scientist

◦ Folksonomy = Layman

Benefits◦ Improved usability

◦ Relevant searches

◦ Faster navigation

Consistency, consistency, consistency

Content Types◦ Syndication – Create content type „hub‟ that entire

organization can use.

Publish/Subscription model.

◦ Document Sets – “Super-Folders” that behave like a content type

Groups documents as a single unit

Versioning as a whole

Property Promotion – Pulls properties from documents and promotes them into SharePoint for filtering, workflow actions, etc.

External Content Types - Multiple content types that come from an external system (as if it is inside SharePoint)

Folders vs. Metadata◦ You can set metadata based on folder structure

◦ You can use content organizer to create a folder structure based on metadata

Navigation◦ Visualization of the IA, Taxonomy, Hierarchy

◦ Should be highly controlled at the top level, and flexible/allowed to change at the „leaf level‟

◦ Determines your initial design – OOB navigation is site-collection specific

Will it scale? (Depth of navigation)

Need to monitor throughout to adapt to changing requirements. (Nav = Performance)

Plan on improvements through end-user feedback

Intuitive = Success

Folders are fine if you expect all users to navigate in the same way File explorer

Other applications can interact.

If you use folders, keep it shallow (cognative memory)

Still have the 256 URL limit.

If you want to allow for multiple navigation schemes, you need metadata

Term Store◦ Database that contains taxonomy information

◦ Each Includes:

Groups – Containers for Term Sets (security controlled)

Term Sets – Containers for terms (can determine whether open/closed) – Pushed like content types

Terms – Predefined values that contain taxonomy objects

Structured ◦ Specific, managed data, but less flexible

◦ Ensures proper use/compliance, familiarity

Unstructured („Folksonomy‟)◦ Allows users to participate (add, tag)

◦ Builds/exposes relationships that were not previously envisioned

Can be used for Metadata-based navigation

Metadata Validation (Based on your rules)

Content Organizer◦ Allows for automatic routing rules for submitted

documents

◦ Drop-Library: Customers have a single „drop-location‟ in which document is routed to the correct location based on metadata.

◦ Implemented as a feature, must be activated

◦ Auto-enforces 5,000 items per folder rule

Social Features◦ Stream of social networking activities

◦ Community-driven

◦ Follow what colleagues find useful/interesting

◦ Comments – Improves content. Communicates to the author about usefulness.

◦ Tags – Improves searchability

◦ Ratings – Assess value of content.

Rich Media◦ Automatic Image Upload (Automatically uploads

images referenced by a document during upload)

◦ EXIF Data Promotion – Data that accompanies images can be promoted into SharePoint

◦ File Dialog – Open and close documents, insert into SharePoint directly from the file dialog

◦ Previews (view/play in place

Image Preview

Thumbnail Previews

Video Preview

SharePoint 2010 Enterprise Content Management Implementers' Course◦ http://technet.microsoft.com/en-US/sharepoint/hh126808

◦ Or Bing: “SharePoint 2010 ECM”