Site Maps — Still Needed for Web Apps?

Alice Toth, Friday, March 21, 2008 @ 3:07 pm

In a previous post, I talked about creating a Use Case Diagram as a means to moving the 60,000’ concept to a level of detail that’ll allow us to begin development. Since that diagram identifies the overall functionality, the team can use that to start designing the data model, writing user stories and generally working towards a more detail view of what we’ll eventually need to develop.

The site map is another diagram I’ve found helpful to bring further definition to the concept.

On some projects, usually those that were understaffed, the site map was typically drawn up after the project was in the end stages of development and only because someone in marketing asked for it. Oh, everyone on the team knew what was being built and the relationship between the areas, but it was all verbal -- no one had taken the time to set it down on paper.

At Pathfinder, we sketch out a site map early in the process to give a physical representation to the verbal concepts floating around the team. The ‘we should separate this’, and ‘let the user skip from here to there’ and ‘oh yeah, both these areas relate to each other’ kind of ideas that float around before requirements are actually written.

The very act of documenting work to further define the concepts and gives the team a visual artifact for future decisions. The site map, no matter how rudimentary, begins to identify and categorize the user activities into a relational hierarchy and provide a framework for the application. It helps in project scoping and planning because it begins to further identify the details of a project, which can then open a conversation as to what is needed now and what can be postponed to later. It is a concrete drawing that you can show the client and ask, do you agree? Is this what you want?

As with Use Case Diagrams, a Site Map gives you an overall view of a project -- not necessarily all the details but a high level view of the end goal. Both documents are relevant because both give you a checkpoint to refer back to once you’re in the details of a project to make sure that you’re still on track to meet the project objectives.

user experience design

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1. 

   yes they are needed!

   Comment by web design company, Friday, March 28, 2008 @ 1:13 pm

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