UX & IA Design Thinking

If you want to allow your users to view/update their personal Status on any page in SharePoint 2010 follow these simple steps. 1.) As with my previous post you need to add the following to the top of your custom master page right before the doctype: <%@ Register Tagprefix="SPSWC" Namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal.WebControls" Assembly="Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" %> 2.) In your custom master page search for “s4-trc-container-menu” and add in the following before the “Welcome” control: <SPSWC:ProfilePropertyLoader runat="server" /> <SPSWC:StatusNotesControl runat="server"/> <SPSWC:ProfilePropertyImage PropertyName="PictureUrl" ShowPlaceholder="true" id="PictureUrlImage" runat="server"/> **Note that if you do not have the <SPSWC:ProfilePropertyLoader runat="server" /...

Here is a simple way to add in the logged in users profile picture right before or after the users name in the SharePoint 2010 ribbon. 1.) Add the following to the top of your custom master page right before the doctype: <%@ Register Tagprefix="SPSWC" Namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal.WebControls" Assembly="Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" %> 2.) Add in the following control right before the welcome text: <SPSWC:ProfilePropertyImage PropertyName="PictureUrl" style="float: left; height: 20px;" ShowPlaceholder="true" id="PictureUrlImage" runat="server"/> A nice feature that you can customize is if you don’t want to show a placeholder image if a users has not uploaded a custom picture you can simply change ShowPlaceholder="true" to “false”. and it will only show a picture if someone has specified a cus...

So, I have gotten a lot of great feedback within the comments of my blog. I have heard from quite a few people that they either just been tasked with branding SharePoint and don’t know where to start. Or they have a basic idea about SharePoint, CSS and HTML but don’t know where or how to reference the custom CSS. This is a long post so hold on to your hat! Within this post I am going to focus this topic on SharePoint 2010 but the approach could be used either for 2007 or 2010. Step 1: The first thing that you have to consider is how the SharePoint site that you are branding is configured? Is it SharePoint 2007 or 2010? Is it WSS or Full SharePoint Server? Will Publishing be enabled? What site templates will be branded? Publishing Team Collaboration Meeting Workspaces Search Center My Sites Administration Pages “_layouts/” Other? Step 2: Be prepared and gather all design support files from your visual designer ...

My previous post did not include a style for the search scope drop down. Use the following to CSS to update the search scope from: To: Download updated files HERE How to implement: Upload the custom master page into the master page gallery Navigate to the following location on your server: “C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\1033\STYLES” Create a folder called “LGSEARCH” and place the “lgsearch.css” and the two image files into this directory. Apply the “lgsearch.master” to your site.

If you would like to stylize your navigation drop downs in SharePoint 2010 here are the 4 main key classes to update your CSS. If you are looking for SharePoint 2007 styles see my previous blog post here . The OOTB Navigation Drop Down CSS: “COREV4.CSS” .s4-tn ul.dynamic{ /* [ReplaceColor(themeColor:"Light2")] */ background-color:white; /* [ReplaceColor(themeColor:"Dark2-Lighter")] */ border:1px solid #D9D9D9; } .s4-tn li.dynamic > .menu-item{ display:block; padding:3px 10px; white-space:nowrap; font-weight:normal; } a:link{ /* [ReplaceColor(themeColor:"Hyperlink")] */ color:#0072BC; text-decoration:none; } .s4-tn li.dynamic > a:hover{ font-weight:normal; /* [ReplaceColor(themeColor:"Light2-Lighter")] */ background-color:#D9D9D9; } Example (Not good design, but you get the point) /* Drop Down: Container Style */ .s4-tn ul.dynamic{ background-color:white; border:3p...

The OOTB search box in my opinion is hidden and misplaced. In most cases it gets in the way with the top navigation especially when you have a lot of items in it. The solution to this problem is to move the search box up to the left of the social tags and make it bigger with CSS and Images. Here is what the search box will look like: This design consists of two images one for the search box (searchbox.gif) and the other for the button (searchbutton.gif). Moving the Search Control: In your custom master page simply move the s4-searcharea div up into a new <td></td> before the social tags. The final code should look like this: Notice that I kept the div and the “s4-rp” class. This has the “float:right” attribute for the help icon. Putting it all together: I have placed all of the support files to create this large search box style into the following .zip file that you can download and apply to your development site. Source Files: Download...

I will be co-presenting at the SharePoint Conference in Baltimore, MD March 8th with my friend Chris Arella . Designing for SharePoint: Avoid the Pitfalls When: Tuesday, March 08, 2011 @ 1:45PM Speakers: Erik Swenson Session Details: Applying your creative design to the SharePoint platform can be incredibly challenging. The diverse functionality offered in SharePoint 2010 is daunting, to say the least, and trying to tame all of this power into a cohesive and polished design is incredibly overwhelming. If you’re ready to start designing in SharePoint, but you’re not quite sure where to start, we’ll set you down and point you in the right direction. Learn best practices for designing in SharePoint, and discover solutions to the common pitfalls that designers often encounter. This is going to be a great conference! For more information and to register go to: http://www.sharepointconference.org I hope to see you there!