Maybe it’s because I live in a small house and have been on a simplify and unclutter kick for the past year and still going strong (great blog – unclutterer), but it makes sense to me that you your website needs to be organized and uncluttered.
And how do you design an organized/uncluttered website?
You map it out at the very start of the design or re-design process.
I hesitate to call the document I create a Site Map. That term has too many other meanings. This isn’t the page on your site labeled ‘Site Map’ that helps users (and maybe Google) see what’s on your site. It also isn’t the XML document that you upload to your host called a Site Map that Google and other web spiders use to move through your site.
This is a document that shows every page of your site and where each of those pages go. And yes, every page should go somewhere. It can also show whether the pages are dynamic, what databases will be required for the site, where you’ll need Flash or other media, maybe even what kind of coding you’re going to use on the site.
The best thing it provides is an overall picture of the site, something everyone can look at and understand. Once it’s been finalized, it gives me a road map for the project, letting me know how much more I need to do at every stage and when I’m finished (it can be surprisingly hard to figure out if you’re finished with a website or not, because they are constantly changing).
Next time I’ll talk about actually making the Map. Don’t worry, it’s not hard, you could do it on cocktail napkins (though that’s not my normal method, I don’t have enough cocktail napkins lying around).
{ 0 comments }
