Designing for Sustainability
Launching a central platform like this is a milestone, not the finish line. For tools to stay useful and relevant, the people using them need space, support, and confidence to grow into contributors and collaborators, not just consumers.
SharePoint pages are meant to evolve. They reflect what’s happening inside the organization: updates, changes, decisions, events. Handing over the site isn’t just about transferring content. It’s about making sure the people who use it feel equipped to update it, adapt it, and build on it. To support that evolution and make sure that the changes were sustainable, we embedded training directly into the system. It’s simple, flexible, and ready to grow alongside the people who use it.
What Drove the Design
When we joined the project, the team was already actively engaged. Different people handled different areas: communications, content, IT, outreach. But, much of the know-how lived in separate lanes. That setup worked most of the time, but when coordination was needed, delays crept in.
Even simple tasks, like updating announcements or managing site access, often had to go through one person. Not because others weren’t capable, but because the knowledge wasn’t widely shared or easily accessible. This challenge was compounded by the organization’s structure. As a nonprofit relying on volunteers who are all balancing other responsibilities like jobs, school, and caregiving, things naturally moved at a flexible pace. Without clear, accessible guidance, even small tasks could end up waiting longer than they needed to
The goal wasn’t to speed everyone up—it was to make it easier to keep things moving, even when people were juggling a lot.
This created familiar friction:
Questions bounced between people before landing in the right place
Updates stalled because only one person knew how
New contributors relied on informal walkthroughs or scattered notes
We responded by designing a structure that:
Made guidance easy to find without adding extra tools
Offered multiple ways to learn, depending on the task
Made it easier for contributors to support one another
It wasn’t about adding complexity. It was about embedding support into the system, so that learning and doing could happen in the same place.
We didn’t just explain the tools; we made them teachable.
Training, Support, and Shared Ownership
We started with a live walkthrough alongside the founder and key contributors, using the site map to clarify roles, surface backend questions, and explore where automation (like Power Automate alerts) could reduce friction.
But sustainable design isn’t about one handoff; it’s about distributing knowledge. We built a training system directly into SharePoint so contributors could learn and act without waiting on a single expert.
What We Built: A System That Supports Itself
We designed a training experience that lives where the work happens; inside SharePoint, not off to the side.
From the SharePoint homepage, users can access a training and support landing page that links to focused subpages, each built around a real task: posting announcements, managing permissions, organizing content, and more.
Each training subpage includes:
Screenshots and walkthroughs based on real actions in the system
Micro-tutorials that match different roles and access levels
Curated Microsoft documentation for deeper learning
Room for future contributors to expand or update the content
No extra platforms. No separate learning site. Just-in-time guidance, built directly into the tools people already use.
What It Looks Like in Action
The images below show how each training subpage is structured around a real task or decision point. Every element was designed to support quick, confident action—from custom glossary sections to visual guides that reflect the organization’s actual SharePoint setup.
Training and Support can be accessed from the organization's SharePoint home or the top navigation bar displayed on each page.
On the training landing page, learners can “jump to what they need” based on what they're looking to learn or the task they’re trying to complete.
Each training subpage includes a customized glossary. All topics include a plain-language definition, but additional information is also provided depending on the context that is needed for the learner to understand how and when to use each feature. This might include a screenshot from their actual SharePoint site, step-by-step instructions on how to get there, examples of when a feature might be useful, or direct links to relevant Microsoft support articles. Rather than offering a generic glossary, each one is tailored to support the specific learning task on that page.
Beneath the glossary on each training subpage, users can access a dashboard offering multiple learning pathways. Whether they prefer video, step-by-step visuals, or official Microsoft documentation, the options are organized to support different comfort levels, roles, and learning needs.
Training was designed with flexibility in mind, meeting users where they are. Learners could choose from official Microsoft articles, curated YouTube playlists, interactive screenshots, visual step-by-step guides, and embedded glossary content. Each format offers a different way in, allowing users to build confidence at their own pace using tools that feel intuitive and familiar.
This is an example of a visual step-by-step guide users can access.
Part of the on-page glossary system, this screenshot shows users how formatting options work inside the SharePoint text web part.
This short video demonstrates for users how to access version history in SharePoint. It is also part of the glossary.
What Made It Work
The new system made the work easier to navigate, but just as importantly, it made things clearer. By embedding training into the structure itself, we weren’t just teaching a tool; we were reinforcing how everything fits together.
Still, that clarity didn’t come from the tool alone. It came from the questions we asked, the conversations we had, and the space we created to rethink what was really needed.
Select “Lessons & Reflections” to see how clarity became the thread that tied everything together—and why it’s so easy to lose in a world full of options, expectations, and decisions that never slow down.