Chris Radcliffe

Changing User Behaviour in Sharepoint

Over the past 4 years, I've seen a lot of companies adopt MS SharePoint into their organization to improve the collaboration and communication that occurs among their employees. Like any application or technology, there are natural learning curves that need time to overcome if the tool is going to truly make an impact on people's day-to-day lives.

One area that I've seen particularly challenging with SharePoint is the change in behaviour that is required to improve communication and document management. Many people (including myself) find it difficult to change their behavior when it comes to emailing documents!

The problem is that it is faster to attach a document right into the email (by pressing 'one' button), than instead loading the document into a document library, copying the URL and then inserting the URL into your email. I know, sounds silly, but its true.

Generally anyone that struggles with a huge InBox feels the pain of email mismanagement (or poor info mgmt practices), and would in theory be ready to change their behavior - but this isn't always the case.

I'm curious if anyone else has experienced any 'user behavior adoption' challenges with SharePoint and what they've done to solve the issue. Comments encouraged!

Forget Banner Blindness - Users are Blinded by Underlined Links

I certainly haven't conducted enough usability testing to be bold enough to say "underlined links are bad" - but I have seen a growing trend in our testing that makes me challenge the application of underlined links...

I think most would agree that the most important component of the interaction a user has on a page is their ability to identify links. We've come a long way from the classic red, blue and green - but I've found lately in testing that most users scan the page for their trigger words that identify a possible navigation route and they then look for the closest actionable link.

A trend I've noticed is that users are not impacted when links are not underlined, provided there is still some differientation or perceived affordance through colour, bolding or symbols to give them a hint that there is a link.

What bothers me most about underlining links is the fact that its often completely unnecessary and can actually negatively impact usability. Take a sidebar or left hand navigation - most users know instantly because of its relative location on the page that it is a site navigation area. Underlining sidebar or left-nav links only adds more clutter to the page, especially when you indent the navigation to illustrate sub-levels.

What's even worse is when links wrap multiple lines - in these scenarios I've seen testers completely miss trigger words that are in the middle of the link because they are blinded by the underline!

If you know of any research out there that speaks to the effectiveness of readability with underlined text, please let me know!