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Mapping Web Sites: Planning Diagrams to Site Maps
Paul Kahn , Dynamic Diagrams, USASession: Mapping Web Sites
Today's web site is a combination of a publication, a software application, and navigation system. Building such a complex product requires both verbal and visual analysis. Planning diagrams are an essential tool in the analysis process, helping a team understand the content and relationships that the design of a web site must represent.
Even with the best design, a web site is largely invisible and often difficult to grasp. As the web has grown as a publishing media, designers have struggled to find the equivalent of an index or table of contents for a web site. A web site is not a book, a magazine, a virtual city or a file system. We will explore the kinds of diagram that can visually represent a web site.
This seminar covers:
- The concept of mapping, with key historical examples of visual representations
of space
- A review of planning diagram techniques for building large web sites
- A review of hand-made site map techniques for navigating web sites
- A review of current products for generating diagrams from web site
data
- A review of research systems for generating diagrams from web site
data
The seminar includes demonstrations and comparison of the latest software tools and techniques for web developers, web masters and visitors to visualize web sites.