Chapter 1
Why Design?
When people attempt to take up Microsoft Office SharePoint 2007 (MOSS 2007) as a profession, or even as a hobby, they immediately begin by trying to understand how to make the portal work. This is probably an obvious path; to make SharePoint work, you have to, well, make it work. Beginners toil with custom lists, site administration, and out-of-the-box Web parts. They may start getting into security and document libraries and slightly more advanced topics. Some more advanced (or brave) users may even get into custom development and modification in SharePoint and its integration with other technologies.
But when is it time to learn about design and branding when it comes to the SharePoint portals these people are designing? Should they learn it in the beginning? Or perhaps wait until they have a solid understanding of all other principles related to MOSS 2007? And, once they learn good design concepts, when is it time to worry about the site's look and feel? Is there a good time? If so, should it come at the beginning of the planning process? At the end?
Unfortunately, too often MOSS 2007 developers put little to no emphasis on the actual look and feel of the sites they are designing. There could be any number of reasons that this happens. Maybe it's because, from a business sense, it's hard to quantify good design. Sure, any analyst can show that with the addition of this new feature of the Web site subscription revenue went up by x number of dollars. It's ...
