So we at SSW are looking to upgrade our Intranet using SharePoint 2016 and the brief was to use the functionality coming later in 2017 to make a really great user experience.

So I watched An overview of SharePoint communication sites and took a screenshot of some of the new features coming to SharePoint.

As the designer I was working with was on other work I decided to put something together myself using my endless talent and Paint.Net.  So in the end I came up with this:-

It has all the required information, its nice a clean and I was pretty happy with myself.  To me it covers the basics of the design brief, It uses the new functionality, and its a rich interface.  So a few days later the designer was available again and I gave her my design to touch it up a bit and here is the result: –

I’ll forgive you for suggesting the designers is better.  Its the same elements (minus a few changes from the boss!) in such a more rich and appealing format.  A designer considers the composition, the font, and lots of other things I probably don’t understand to get to a rich user experience.  My focus on the other hand is on how does it work functionally and does it meet my basic requirements.

Obviously I was put back in my box and quickly remembered why I don’t do design and at the same time remembered why Design is such an important part of modern IT.  If your project doesn’t have a designer then are you really seeing the best result you could?