Comments on: User Experience Week: Using DelegateControls to Customize the User Experience

By: jainnitin

jainnitin — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 17:06:26 +0000

I am placing a usercontrol (contain Menu control) didn't display any where on site. Can I user

ASP.Net menu control inside the usercontrol.

By: Bjørn Furuknap

Bjørn Furuknap — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 01:58:55 +0000

I think you have your work cut out for you, yes

By: Chris Poteet

Chris Poteet — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 22:16:15 +0000

I did some interesting stuff making the search control more usable with delegate controls.

I always wanted to do a project where the delegate controls were all modified to reduce the horrible markup making MOSS more standards compliant. I bet that would be a huge task.

By: Bjørn Furuknap

Bjørn Furuknap — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 22:13:21 +0000

I tend not to create what you call tangible examples at all. I'd rather people be creative on their own by telling people how a certain feature works and then leave it up to them to explore the full potential.

I do evaluate your feedback, though Why don't you pick up where I left and write another article with more tangible examples?

By: Chris Poteet

Chris Poteet — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 22:02:11 +0000

You indeed can use Delegate controls to modify the UX, but it just confounds me because in the article you don't actually give any examples of improving the UX of a SharePoint site. I doubt removing the search control and adding a yellow background improves the UX.

I guess I was just hoping for a more tangible example of improving the UX with delegate controls not just what they are.

By: Bjørn Furuknap

Bjørn Furuknap — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 21:51:42 +0000

Are you saying that having a method to alter the CSS of a page is not part of user experience?

DelegateControls is very much a part of the user experience, yes. Both the top navigation and quicklaunch data sources are DelegateControls, as is the search box, the My site links, the visual interface... All of these things affect the user experience.

Add your own DelegateControls to your own master or content pages and you can modify the entire interface and behavior of a site by adding or removing Features from a site.

So how you can say that DelegateControls are not part of UX is a mystery to me. But I am very open to your further thoughts.

By: Chris Poteet

Chris Poteet — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 04:09:16 +0000

I don't quite understand why you're categorizing this as UX. Nothing in this article actually improves the UX of SharePoint. Development does not always mean UX.