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

[Stewart Dean]

>From: "Jonathan Baker-bates" <Jonathan.Baker-bates at framfab.com>

>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?

I tend to work on medium to large sties (not massive - less than 1000 pages) 
and my question to you is, how can you create a site without have a map 
showing it's organisation. You have support, products, solutions, contact us 
etc - they are stay in the same place and have the same structure running 
off from them - it's hirachical.  Add to that a layer of contextual 
navigation and flows for applications (both can be show in the site map if 
you want to show how everything works together although seperation adds 
clarity of detail if not overview).

So, in short, how do you architect a site without a site map?

Stewart Dean