I approached the site-map as a "whos' going to use it" problem, so my
concept map communicated the approach and goals of the project, but
the wireframes and user navigation illustrated how each tool fit into
each separate area. Our site contains the overall sitemap in each
page's footer (a little crowded, IMHO), but the user's map is front
and center on each of their home pages (twice, actually).
I agree that the desire to illustrate where to find just about
anything is very strong, and if I had it to do over again, would have
fleshed out each user's experience a little more. Just one of those
things, I guess...I did most of the design work, with just a few other
developers on the team, so some things got pushed to the side.
One other reason for starting with the concept map - we weren't going
to have half of the functionality until some months into the project
(it's constantly evolving), so I knew I was going to have to redesign
each user's experience several times until we got to 80% of the
features we wanted. We've held off on several of those and introduced
several new ones in their place, so if I had created a master site
map, it would have been rebuilt 8 times by now =]
Bryan Minihan
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Jun 11, 2008, at 11:36 AM, Tom Dell'Aringa wrote:
On Wed, Jun 11, 2008 at 10:32 AM, Bryan Minihan
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
For the pre-work on our current project, I put together a concept
map, instead of a direct site-map. I divided the site into distinct
"clouds" and placed common tools into each according to roles. My
main site map gave a high-level overview and delineated all of the
"locked down" pages that help with site admin and general company
information, but when it got down to the user-interaction level, the
"clouds" illustrated which tools were available to each group,
without trying to show they were in specific pages at any given time.
I've actually done that exact thing, it was the first thing I did. I
have circles around each main "idea" with satellites of
functionality around them. Lines connect things that interact.
Maybe that is a better tool, I'm not sure. When it comes down to
"hard pages" I end up with very few items on the site map. Maybe I'm
seeing a problem where there isn't one, I'm just not sure.
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