The Lazy IA’s Guide to Making Sitemaps - Boxes and Arrows

The Lazy IA’s Guide to Making Sitemaps - Boxes and Arrows: "Sitemaps are common deliverables, desired by clients who want a visual representation of a site. Since they are rarely used to make decisions, information architects may not consider them the valuable tools they are. The effort required to make and maintain them requires time that might be better used elsewhere. In fact, I would suggest that making sure the little boxes line up is a waste of an IA’s mental abilities.

So what is an IA to do? Turn to Excel, of course. Storing sitemap data in a structured data format such as Microsoft Excel makes the data easy to edit, easy to share with the team, and easy to elaborate on (e.g., adding example notes and URLs that may not be appropriate for the map itself). Unfortunately, this approach requires maintaining a spreadsheet in addition to maintaining the visual sitemap."

A List Apart: Articles: Home Page Goals

A List Apart: Articles: Home Page Goals: "When I set out to design a website, I do it backwards. I start with the design of the smallest, deepest element: the story page or search results. Then I work backwards to design their containers: section pages, indexes. Then, lastly, I work on the home page.

I do this because each container needs to adequately set expectations for what it contains. If the home page says one thing, but the internal pages say another, that’s going to lead to a user-experience failure."

DonnaM: Taking a content inventory

DonnaM: Taking a content inventory: "You take a content inventory because, before redesigning a website or intranet, you need to know what you have. This is especially important if you will be migrating your content to a new structure or new CMS - at some point you need to know every single content element.

Even if you aren't doing a big migration, an important step in a redesign project is gaining a deep understanding of the content - not only what you have, but what types of content you have and the relationships and patterns within the content.

Taking an inventory tells you what you have, and if you do it well, will also put you on the path where you have a good understanding of the content."