Miriam
|
|
The
Web Site
Development Process
Creating a web site, especially the first time, can be a daunting task. Often, one may want to jump right into designing a site without any preparation. Resist this urge! It is important to do research and planning before the actual building process. Planning eliminates future problems. You will not get very far if you don’t know what you are doing or why. How does one go about developing a web site from beginning to end? There are many activities involved in developing a web site. These activities can be divided into three phases: (1) planning/research, (2) design, and (3) production and operation. In this chapter I will discuss the first phase of web site development - focusing on web site purpose, intended audience and content chunking. Purpose
To create a successful web
site, you first must understand the big picture. In order to understand, you
must ask questions. What is the vision of each of the involved parties? What
materials are available for you to use? What restrictions exist? More often than
not the perception of the individuals involved will be different, so it is
critical to bring these different perceptions out into the open as soon as
possible Here are some questions that you need to ask:
You will probably get as
many different answers to these questions as the number of people involved.
That’s ok. We all bring our biases to the table. What is important is getting
all of these opinions out into the open and discussing them. This will help you
to avoid wasted work and complications later on. Furthermore, this helps make
everyone feel involved and enthusiastic about the project and instill confidence
that you know what you are doing. One of the best ways to
start a new web site design project and for clients and colleagues, and you, to
become comfortable with each other, and conduct research at the same time,
involves reviewing and discussing real-world web sites. It is much easier to
express likes and dislikes about particular sites that to talk abstractly about
preferences. Show the client team sites with a variety of architectures and
definitely show them competitor sites. Invite the participants to suggest sites
for review. Ask them what they love and hate and why. Point out features you
find useful or useless and don’t be afraid to encourage or express strong
feelings about specific sites. Passionate consumers become caring producers. While these critiques are
great for you to learn about people’s preferences, it is also a sneaky way for
you to educate them. Use the critique as an opportunity to explain and
illustrate your ideas about what makes a web site good. More often than not,
individuals, especially those holding the purse strings, have definite ideas of
how a web site should be designed and what it should include. But these ideas
may be ineffective and counter the site’s purpose. Remember designing for the
web is different than any other publishing style and those with the political
clout may not understand or see this and need to be educated on what is good.
Remind your colleagues to focus on creating an architecture that works for the
user because if the user is unable to find the information he/she needs on their
site or finds their site frustrating to use, the user will not return. To begin a successful web
site development project, it is an excellent idea to write a purpose statement
for the project and include it with the design model, the schedule and any other
parts of the project documentation. This statement should reflect the cumulative
answers to the previous questions and will help the development process remain
focused. However, even after the purpose has been identified and agreed upon,
don’t set it in stone. New ideas may emerge, but be aware to keep any
evolution from deviating from the stated goals. Maintaining good project
documentation is one of the best ways to fight any drifting. Intended
Audience
In addition to formulating your purpose, you need to analyze the intended audience of your web site. With information architecture, one size does not fit all, so the needs and characteristics of the major audiences should determine your approach. Here are some questions you might ask:
Once an initial list is
generated of possible audiences, ask the group to rank the relative importance
of these audiences, and list their most important needs. Here’s an example of
an audience analysis for a jewelry school:
This structured approach to
research will enable you to gather valuable information quickly and efficiently.
The results will prove useful in considering possible information architectures
for the web site. Content
Chunking
One of the biggest
challenges in information architecture design is trying to get your arms around
the intended content and functionality of the web site. Collecting content is
the most time consuming task in web design projects. The success in identifying
and collecting content lies with the client. If possible the content list should
be the result of brainstorming sessions. A content list is a rough and tentative
roster of the major elements to include in your web site: text graphics,
animation, video and audio. A small team planning a small site might be able to
work around a table with paper and pencil. However, larger teams and larger
sites may want to use a whiteboard or some type of projection onto a screen for
all to view. If brainstorming sessions are not possible, collecting content from
people in multiple departments will take more time and effort. This is
especially true of large, geographically distributed organizations. Some
representatives and departments care about the project and will respond quickly.
Others will not. As the information architect, it is your job to develop a
process to efficiently and effectively collect the content wish lists. Wish lists are an excellent
tool for this information gathering task. Invite all relevant parties to create
a wish list that describes the types of content they would like to see on the
web site. Additionally, ask them to organize their content into categories. With
these simple steps and the unstructured wish lists you can expect a relatively
fast turnaround time. Once people have taken the first pass at the wish list,
you can proceed with compiling the complete set of content requirements and ask
the same group to rank the content according to importance and urgency. This
step allows you to quickly learn about the desired content and associated
priorities. Grouping content into the
top-level categories of an information hierarchy is typically the most important
and challenging process you will face. How should the content be organized? How
do users currently navigate this information? How do the clients want users to
navigate? Which content items should be included in which major categories? The design of the information architecture should be done by research involving the team members and representatives from each of the major audiences. To conduct this research purchase several packages of 3 x 5-inch index cards and follow these steps:
This card-based content
chunking process can be performed within the group where a consensus on the
organization of information must be reached, or individuals can sort the cards
alone and record the results. This process can be time consuming and confusing
but it does indicate how people organize and categorize information. Some of
this content chunking can be accomplished through the wish list process as noted
earlier. This content chunking information will be invaluable to you as you
begin to design the architecture for your client’s web site. Sources
Farkas, David and Jean Farkas, Website Design: Theory
and Principles Rosenfeld, Louis and Peter Morville, Information Architectures for the World Wide Web. 1998. O, Reilly and Associates, Sebastopol, CA |
Copyright © by the Trope Troupers. All rights reserved.Last edited on: 03/14/2001 |
