I've always found this aspect of sitemaps troublesome as well. Before you know it the whole drawing becomes a jumble of connectors. The problem lies in trying to depict amorphous online information spaces, in 2D.
I do have a solution of sorts and it's worked in some contexts, I'm not sure how it would scale as the complexity of the sitemap increases. (There's only so much space on the drawing; diminishing value of time you devote to just the sitemap etc.). The solution is based on the following trick. 1. Augment boxes and connectors with another element that depicts links. I use a vague ellipsoid but any reasonable shape can work as long as you state that along with the connectors, this shape also stands for something you click on to go somewhere. 2. Classify navigation in terms of global (appears on every page) and page level (appears only on that page). 3. Attach the link shapes to the page they appear on. If global, then place to the top right or left of the drawing and call out. So in Chris' example below, if the blog has to be accessed from the home page you would place the 'blog' link next to that box. If the document is still complex reduce the number of elements to include just the very important ones (some page level become section level, most of the global ones get axed :-) HTH, -Adamya On 10/2/08, Nasir Barday <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > You could add lines under a particular block to convey what that node shows > and what functionality it makes available. You can also separately model > modules to be shown on sidebars or as additional toolbars, and reference > these modules under your nodes in the same way. > > It helps me to link each node to its corresponding wireframe, so I can more > quickly get to my sketches when presenting. > > Would love to see how others are solving this problem. > > > - Nasir > On 10/2/08, Chris Wright <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I'm getting confused over the true purpose of a sitemap when displaying an > organisation of information. I think mine can work harder. I draw site > maps to show how the pages/entities are organised logically. i.e. about us, > work we do, and contact us are under the homepage. Bu this is telling me > enough information - and commonly I get questions like "but i want to be > able to access blogs from the homepage, and you've put them three levels > down". I want my diagrams to show crossing linking, navigation paths etc.. > > I currently use wireframes to show this.. but I feel my site map could get > this information in earlier > > Any ideas? How do other people do it? Anyone care to share examples of > what/how they have done it. > > Cheers, > > Chris ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
