SharePoint UI Madness

For most user-level activities, SharePoint's UI has typically been adequate. The administrative features, however, continue to sport UI problems that are world class. Someday I'll get around to making a list of my absolute most hated UI blunders in SharePoint. I think it would be best to wait for a day when I'm already in a bad mood because some of these problems seriously perturb me.

Today I had to deal with one that really got me going: adding and editing user accounts for a SharePoint site. You would think that the link to that functionality would just jump out at you once you navigate to site admin (called "settings" in SharePoint-speak) . Nope. The appropriate link appears exclusively in the left sidebar of the "people" page for your site. First navigate to the settings page of your site by using the "Site Actions" dropdown in the upper right hand corner of the page. Then click on "People and Group" link under the "User and Permissions" list. On the ensuing page, People.aspx, look to the left nav for the bolded words "All People." Once you click this link, you'll see all the "people." Thus, in getting to this page, to do something really basic, we've gone through three different navigation schemes!

Below is a screen shot showing the "All People" link.