We’ve upgraded half of our network to SharePoint 2013 and so far the response to the UI is lukewarm if not a bit chilly. The folks in our network piloting Office 2013 definitely don’t like its UI. I know the response to that is generally “too bad” (save for a few things they can do).
I’m hoping I can give them something a bit more, possibly explaining the changes in GUI design over the last decade or so. I’ve followed these changes (mainly impacted by mobile development, I think), but I’m not an expert.
I’m looking for links to some written work, either by Microsoft or other UI design experts, that I can use to explain why the UI has changed so much. Specifically users aren’t happy with the lack of borders and “too much white space” (very much a generalization, I know).
For reference, we’re moving from Office and SharePoint 2007, so they didn’t have the benefit of a smoother transition through 2010. Lesson learned. We also don’t have mobile access to our SharePoint installation, so none of our users would see any actual benefit to the UI being mobile-friendly. (Of course, not that that takes away from the needs of everyone else using SharePoint out there.)
Some added benefits would be nice, too, so I can spin this in a positive light. For example, I find the Word 2013 reader mode to be beautiful and work flawlessly so far, even with documents that use heavy custom formatting.
Personally, I don’t mind the new look and feel, but my users are never satisfied with “that’s just the way Microsoft did it.” Any good sources that you think explain their decision-making process would be appreciated!
Hi, I share your experience. I work almost only with SharePoint branding and front end stuff as an consultant, and the reason they hire dudes like me is just this reasons, the users are in my perspective not satisfied with SharePoint plain vanilla, the want to have something that’s better that what comes out of the box. I can only say I understand them, there’s always (alot of) rooms for improvements in this area. So if the users think the UI is lukewarm or chilly, maybe an design agency could be hired to create something more attractive together with an SP consult that can implement it. The good thing at least is that SharePoint can be branded just like every other web application.
