Information Architecture is the back bone for any SharePoint related projects. It is quite important to get the information architecture right for the success of the project. To get it right, we need to ask the right questions during the IA planning sessions. Here is a good run down of the list of questions to ask as part of the IA Planning. Please note that, this list is not definitive and can alter from project to project. This is just an indicative list.
|
Category |
Question |
|
Users |
· Who are your users? · Where are your users located? · What languages do your users understand and want to use? · How do they want to use your information? · How are your users grouped? o External customers o External partners o Internal divisions o Internal departments o Internal various locations (national and international) · Will you need to target information at specific users or audiences? |
|
Topology |
· Do you require multiple farms? · How many top-level site collections do you require? · What subsites do you require? · Will you require a multitier publishing infrastructure? · Will you have a common security infrastructure for all users? · What are the site-specific security requirements? · Are there any unique subsite security requirements? |
|
Appearance |
· Do you want to use a common brand across your sites? · Do you want to design your own: o Master pages? o Site or List Templates? o Page layouts? o Style sheets? o Custom controls? o Web Parts? |
|
Navigation |
· Will you use the default navigation tools? · Will you require custom development for personalized navigation? |
|
Information |
· What information types will your users want to work with? · What metadata will you require? · What additional content types will you require? · Will you implement search? · How will you configure search? · How will you optimize search? · Will you need to integrate LOB or other external data? |
|
Information Security |
· What are your auditing requirements? · Do you have defined information management policies? |
The above list is part of the Module 1 – Web Content Management Overview. For complete document and other WCM Training Modules, please refer to http://www.microsoft.com/DownLoads/details.aspx?FamilyID=8b2c7980-b604-493f-b5ee-52c562458e34&displaylang=en
