Proven Portals: Best Practices for Planning, Designing, and Developing Enterprise Portals

The Need for Structure in Portal Interface Design

When considering portal interface structure, it is useful to distinguish between the visible structures and the underlying structures. The visible structures provide the organization reflected in the designs of pages, groups of pages (known as subsites), and the entire portal itself. These structures are readily apparent to users.

The underlying structures are core services, such as authentication, access controls, and metadata management, as well as the policies and procedures that govern the evolution of the portal. These structures are not necessarily visible when they work well, but their absence is all too apparent. When users cannot work with essential applications because of access control ...