I've gotten this one a few times in the past: "Where's our site map? Why don't we have one?"
I tend to answer with: "Whose needs are we not serving for lack of a site map? Let's meet those needs correctly, rather than providing an unmanageable list of links in a format we can only guess at, for an unknown quantity of people." Site users who want to know the breadth and depth of a site's services - typically can get all of that information from a well-written, one page, bulleted summary of the site's features, with key links into major areas of the site. If the site is transparent and obvious enough, even that's unnecessary. The point is, building and maintaining a site map to solve just that problem is likely to be a bigger headache than a simpler solution. Site maps as a design tool can be invaluable, esp as an aide to solving info arch problems. These don't really need to exist on the site itself. Site maps to help search engines get to various points can be invaluable, but there are alternatives to hosting it in your main application. I tend to gravitate toward the footer variety of site map, but even then, the information I put there is for a particular kind of person: someone looking for information about our company, services and policies. When I stopped using images for my primary navigation, I stopped replicating it in text form in the footer, which left more room for company meta information, just where people have told me they look for it. -- Bryan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=33722 ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
