|
Building a
corporate Web site is not something you want to approach by "jumping
in." This may be fine for a personal site that’s going to
present baby or graduation pictures along with some captions for all
the family to see. But any Web site that’s going to represent a
business or serious enterprise, no matter how small, should start
with a thorough analysis of the information that’s going to be
required. Even graphics, though certainly essential to a
user-friendly site, are secondary to the information that will
comprise the site. Because "content is king" on the Web;
presentation of content will determine how much your content
"rules." It’s the information you want to get across on your site
that will drive the content and the graphics, drive the
navigation scheme, guide the interaction elements and drive the
viewers to or away from your site.
This focus on information and
the methodology for planning and mapping it is called "Information
Architecture." Like many technical/academic-sounding concepts, this
one has primarily been used to guide the development of large complex sites
for large complex companies. But don’t dismiss the value of IA to
the development of any site worth visiting. Your site --and your organization --will
benefit from this type of internal questioning and planning. It could save
you time and money by getting it right the first time. You don’t
have to hire someone with an advanced degree in Information
Architecture; you need to hire someone to help design your site who understands how critical
this foundation is and is willing to work with you to ferret out the
answers and develop the critical information.
Here are the basic steps in planning your site information:
Define goals for your site -- spell them out, don’t assume
everyone in the company knows the goals or has the same goals;
find a way to include stakeholders (employees, customers, etc.) in
identifying goals. This could be an enlightening process and
make a huge difference in whether your site hits the mark. It
may also be useful to set short and long-term goals so you bite off the right size
project in the short term. If you decide to postpone some of your
longer-term goals, you can build in scalability from the outset.
Determine the audience.
Again, this conversation can
include all the internal departments or players who could benefit
from the site. Clarifying your audience means that no constituency
gets accidentally left out; potential or unexpected audiences are
identified, conflicts are recognized up-front and the full range of
possibilities is taken into account. The site can be evaluated
later as to how successfully it targets and reaches each audience.
|
- Identify content and functionality. Are you going
to have photos of all your products? Are you going to want
visitors to be able to place orders? Give them a virtual tour of
your facilities? Offer them online access to your staff? Referring
back to the goals and the audience will help answer these
questions.
- Define the site’s structure.
This is a flowchart
identifying the topics/pages and how they relate to
each other. Remember, this is NOT an organizational chart.
Your organizational structure is probably NOT the best way to
present your enterprise to the outside world? Keep your audience
in mind and design your structure from your audience’s point of
view. From this structure will come your navigation system.
- Document all the above decisions as they are established for
use during and after the site is constructed. You won’t get
sidetracked on less essential issues and you will have a map to
mark successes and areas for improvement.
This process is potentially so rich that
in addition to laying the groundwork for a user-friendly and
effective Web site, it could have the unanticipated effect of
building a stronger and more aligned team in preparation for Web
results.
The focus of future articles will
be on actually building the site to meet the specifications you’ve
identified through this planning process. Your well-designed
structure will be a big help throughout the design and building of
the site.
Copyright Susan Wessels, August, 2001
Susan Wessels earned a Bachelor’s
degree in Cognitive Psychology from Carnegie Mellon University where
she worked on projects to simulate human thought and memory on
computers. She holds a Master’s Degree in Organization and
Management from Antioch Graduate School. She has been designing Web
sites for over a year.
Back to Hot Button |
|