Top 3 reasons why SharePoint 2013 is perfect for the End User

1. User Experience

The first noticeable improvement in SharePoint 2013 is the user experience. The look/feel is very clean and modern with the implementation of metro design principles. New improvements for the mobile experience are the ability to design sites to display on different device channels such as smartphones, tablets and desktop. My favorite improvement is the “Drag and Drop” feature which allows you to drag files from your desktop and upload to your SharePoint document libraries, is now supported. This does not require ActiveX and is cross browser supported!

2. Collaboration

Improvements to collaboration has given users the ability create discussions two ways using new templates called Community Site and Community Portal. These templates allow users to collaborate more fully because they can integrate social media feature such as mircoblog, newsfeeds and distributed cache services. These improvements to collaboration make it easier for users to stay informed about what’s going in the organization

3. Workflows

In SharePoint 2013 the workflow platform is completely different than in 2007 or 2010. A new service is required to run these 2013 workflows called the Workflow Service Manager. There are a lot of enhancements to the workflow design interface and experience. My favorite addition is that “True stages” section has been added, which means that the workflow does not have to run only top to bottom order anymore. Loops can be created and “Go To” transition actions enable you to specify, based on conditions which stage you want to be processed next. You can set the loops to run a certain number of times, expressions and conditions.

If you are uncomfortable with these changes, the 2010 workflow platform has been carried forward too. You can keep the 2010 workflow experience by not installing and configure Workflow Manager. Working with SharePoint 2013 workflows will take some time to get used, however having the new capabilities will be worth it.

Also check out https://www.nothingbutsharepoint.com/sites/eusp/Pages/SPC12-Five-Improvements-in-SharePoint-2013-for-End-Users.aspx for more.