Halloween is over, Thanksgiving is in just a few weeks, which starts the Holiday season.  It takes focus to stay on track to keep projects moving forward.  So what kind of stumbling blocks can get in the way?  First thing to mention are key approvals and deliverables that keep a project moving ahead.  They are:

1.  Site Map -A schematic of the website pages with their dependent hierarchy.
2.  Design Concept – A client can choose between 2 design concepts with 3 levels for each concept:  Home, Index and Sub pages.
3.  Images – Projects that go the quickest are those where GTI chooses imagery.
4.  Content – A client deliverable that can derail the website project, sometimes delaying for weeks.
5.  Proto-site – The proto-site will have all elements of the website: all the pages with the copy, and all the images.

What I’ll cover today is getting a site map put together.  This is what it might look like:

Site Map example

A website is built from the site map and tells the developers how many pages will be on the site, their location, where databases are needed (for such things like providing recipes on the site), if there is to be a shopping cart.

We work with each client to make sure the site map represents their expectations for the new website.

The first level is HOME
The second level are INDEX pages with main category names such as: SERVICES, PRODUCTS, COMPANY
The third level are SUB pages that dropdown from each main category INDEX page.

For instance :
This is an INDEX page:  Grape and Wine Processing Equipment
These are  SUB pages of that INDEX:
•    Grape Sorting & Selection
•    Pumps
•    Destemmer/Crushers
•    Presses

It’s all about categorizing your website properly.  GTI’s Usability Best Practices will guide decisions as to what goes where, helping you keep the end result in mind – an effective website giving you a good return on investment.

Tags: design, Site Map, website