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Web Design and Development: The Sitemap
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When we say site map, web users immediately think of the XML version that we send to Google. Those of us in web design and development know that the XML is only one of the site maps that we make.
The most important one to us is the map we draw of the site itself. It can be on paper or on the computer, using something like Freemind or Paint, it doesn’t matter. Having a plan in your mind about what the site will look and function like is essential. It will tell us the structure, the hierarchy, the links, internal and external and anything else we view as important.
Web design and development is more than just creating pretty designs and making a site look good. It’s about making it function, easy to navigate, useful and making it offer value to the visitor. The fewer barriers there are between visitors and what they want, the more successful a site will be.
The web design element of our job comes once most of the work has already been done. It is the development part of our role that determines much about the success or failure of a project. Designing a custom CMS that works in the way the client needs it to, and serves a website that works the way the visitors need it to is often a difficult balance to achieve.
Having a site map is one of the most trivial, but most important aspects of what we do. It gives us a reference point from which everything else stems, and provides grounding for when our imaginations get the better of us.
The other sitemap is the one we might add to the site itself. If it’s a large one, then a sitemap is essential for the human visitors to be able to find their way around. Some web design and development guru’s shy away from creating these, as they think it an insult to their design skills. If they have done their job right, there should be no need for a map to guide visitors round, it should be obvious.
While the logic is sound, I think that we have a duty to make the site accessible to all and leave our ego at the door. We aren’t designing sites for ourselves, or our clients, we design them for the people that use them. Therefore it is our duty to make it as easy as possible for them to do that. |
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