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

[Jonathan Baker-bates]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Stewart Dean [mailto:stew8dean at hotmail.com] 
> Sent: 10 February 2006 10:03
> To: Jonathan Baker-bates; sigia-l at asis.org
> Subject: RE: [Sigia-l] Site maps for web apps, vs for content sites?

> >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).

I never said I didn't create site maps. What I said was I don't see why
spending much more than about a couple of hours on them is worth it
(ignoring updates/tweeks after meetings with stakeholders). This is
because I see them as only able to communicate a high-level introduction
to the sort of content the site will contain (and roughly the way it
will be prioritised for the user). If I want to describe contextual
navigation and flows, I don't use a site map. I use separate artefacts
that are better suited to that task (and in particular don't involve me
having to worry about whether to put boxed down the left or over the top
of an A3 page...).

One thing that intrigues me is that you talk of "navigation" in a site
map as if that was axiomatic. If I have a box called "home page" which
links to three boxes beneath it called "about", "products" and "contact
us" then what does that say about those three boxes? Are they related to
each other beyond being "children" of "home"? Can you get from "about"
to "products" without going via "home"? What if I want to communicate
different navigation treatments depending on the context of the boxes
(referring page, etc.). Are these things that you can efficiently
communicate on a site map? They may be, but as some others have pointed
out, once you get over a certain number of "pages" (whatever a "page"
is...!) then you're on silly street.

Jonathan