[Sigia-l] Site maps for web apps, vs for content sites?

[Jonathan Baker-bates]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: sigia-l-bounces at asis.org 
> [mailto:sigia-l-bounces at asis.org] On Behalf Of Anne Hjortshoj
> Sent: 08 February 2006 15:44
> To: Eric Scheid
> Cc: sigia l
> Subject: Re: [Sigia-l] Site maps for web apps, vs for content sites?
<snip>
> hierarchical page relationships vs. workflow page 
> relationships, and you don't have the design challenge of 
> throwing a workflow into something that looks like an org chart.
> 


I get the impression I'm missing something fundamental in this argument,
but why would you even *attempt* to represent workflow (or process in
general) as well as organisation? They're two completely different
things. Is it any wonder that most of the solutions mentioned have
involved separating them?

On a side issue, I've never been able to grasp the popularity for
organisational site maps. I can see they're useful as a high-level
artefact to introduce people to the broad issues of what sort of content
and user interactions are in scope, and roughly how they will be
prioritised from the user's point of view. But anything more than that
and the tree metaphor surely breaks down and becomes meaningless. Why
are organisational site maps seen as worth of so much time?

Jonathan