Site Mapping

by Jason Vaughn

This lesson is designed to help you map a Web site and prepare a site for design. In this lesson, you will learn how to organize information, draw out a site map and understand page flow. It is recommended that you attend the class lectures to get the full understanding of this lesson.

Site Mapping

Before you begin any site, you should always prepare a site map. A site map is a tool used to help keep you and your site organized. Site maps are like a family trees consisting of pages instead of relatives, that lead to information from one page to the next and back.

First, you need to determine what your site will do. Write down your content. For example, determine what buttons you want to have as well as what you plan to offer. If you have a service of some type, you will need to show a service button as well as distinguishing what services you offer. From that point, you need to decide if you want to describe each service in more detail and how many pages each service will be. Maybe you only use one page for services, either way, you need to start imagining how each section of your site will layout.

See the diagram below for a sample of a site map structure:

You may layout your site map by hand or with the assistance of Adobe Illustrator. The advantage of using Illustrator is you may move pages around as well as set up a large Art Board for bigger sites.

Make sure and use the site structure as well as write down the purpose of your site. Writing an outline on paper will help you in laying out your site map structure and keep things more organized. The more organized you are, the less trouble it will be to keep up with Web site pages and their flow.

Article posted with permission from:
Art Space Design