Interest areas are special type of groups that are intended towards catering to a specific group of users with a specific set of content. Interest areas are so called because they may contain content of importance or interest to certain users or groups. The content structure in the Hub is designed in such a way that groups are assigned to channels. And, Interest Areas can be assigned to a specific set of channels that are of importance to users. An administrator decides the groups that are designated as interest areas.
One way of using interest areas is by assigning Interest Areas to various groups, thereby pushing the relevant content to a targeted set of users.
A sample scenario of assigning interest areas to groups is explained below:
You create a group called "Onboarding and Training" that contains all the "New" and "First time" users. You designate this group as an Interest Area. Now, the structure in the hub is organized in such a way that Groups are associated with Channels, and channels are in turn part of Tabs. Let's assume that the Onboarding and Training group is associated with a channel called "Training Resources". When any content is created in the Training Resources channel, all the users that are part of the Onboarding and Training group get to read it. This way, you push a specific set of content that users or group of users "must" read.
Another way of using interest areas is by allowing the users to choose the the interest areas they want. You can decide if users get to choose all the available interest areas, or limit them to choose only a specific set of interest areas.