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Get started planning and implementing SharePoint navigation design

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To begin, understand that no two organizations will build identical architecture structures in SharePoint. This is because your architecture design stems from the unique needs of your organization and users. Also, remember that architectural structure will change over time as you learn more about user needs and as the business scales and grows.

Similar to SharePoint intranet content, SharePoint architecture should be reviewed and revised as often as needed to ensure users have easy access to relevant content and resources.

In this article:

First: Understand your users

The most important step in planning an effective information architecture is understanding your users:

  • Who are your users? What key roles do they have?
  • What vocabulary do they have? What terms do they use to look for content?
  • What do they want to learn?
  • What do they want to do? What are their top tasks?

Next: Understand your content

In addition to understanding your users and their experiences, you also need to understand your content. Think about how content is distributed across current intranet sites, libraries, and folders. Look at usage data to understand what content is accessed most and least frequently.

Think about the categories of information in your organization, such as services, products, areas of expertise, and functions. Don’t just think about the organization chart. Think about the information people need in their daily work and the key business outcomes you want to achieve. Use this information, and your knowledge of your users, to organize groups of related information, such as key business processes, major projects or initiatives, key business roles, frequent tasks, services, as well as organizational units.

Then: Understand your scope

Information architecture includes five primary elements:

  • Portal navigational structure – How you structure your sites so that users can find content including the home site of your intranet.
  • Hub structure and organization – How you group together similar topics, tasks, and content.
  • Site and page architecture – How content is organized on each site and page so that users can further navigate or consume content effectively.
  • Metadata architecture – How to structure and label your individual content items for browsing and searching as well as compliance and retention.
  • Search experiences – How your users “consume” information architecture in addition to browsing.

Finally: Decide which navigational model works and start to plan and implement

New navigational design for a site:

Note

To edit site navigation, you must be a site owner.

Plan Build Manage
1. Ensure you understand your users needs and the site goals.
2. Learn about designing for local navigation.		 1. Customize the navigation of your site.
2. Consider joining a hub site to increase viewership.
3. Target navigational links to specific audiences.		 1. Use site analytics to understand how users are engaging with your site.
2. Review site navigation as needed to ensure all links are active, relevant, and up to date.

New navigational design for a hub:

Note

To edit hub navigation, you must be the hub owner or tenant administrator. The default navigation menu style for team sites hub navigation will be cascading.

Plan Build Manage
1. Ensure you understand your users needs and the site goals.
2. Learn about designing for global navigation.
3. Consider using a hub site to group similar sites together.
4. Learn about multi-lingual considerations.		 1. Decide on a menu style.
2. Customize the navigation for individual sites.
3. Set up associations and permissions for hub sites.		 1. Use hub analytics to understand how users are engaging with your site.
2. Review site navigation as needed to ensure all links are active, relevant, and up to date.

New navigational design for an intranet site:

Note

To edit intranet site navigation, you must be the hub owner or tenant administrator.

Plan Build Manage
1. Define new intranet business objectives and choose pilot scenarios.
2. Learn about user needs and find methods to test potential designs.
3. Take an inventory of your current sites and subsites
4. Plan the home site.		 1. Start planning hubs and your home site by grouping high priority tasks and content.
2. Set up associations and permissions for hub sites.
3. Release hubs and associated sites in phases.		 1. Establish an intranet review team that ensures navigation and content are up to date and aligned with your organization.
2. Regularly review hub and site analytics to track page traffic and popular content.
3. Make navigation changes based on your learning from user testing and analytics.

Next: learn how to get started planning and implementing SharePoint site navigation