Multimedia & Website Design Initial Planning (Part 2)

Last Week Looked at the high level design concepts: Why are we building a particular site Who are we building it for What tasks are visitors going to accomplish

This week - more detail Take the initial high-level ideas and start to transform them into a detailed plan Define a feature set Develop architecture maps

Feature Set: Wish Lists Gather ideas for features widely within an organisation Don’t expect to implement every feature Brainstorming sessions –Informal meeting to kick around ideas –Invite a diverse range of people –Keep numbers sensible –Alternatives include suggestion box

Brainstorming Sessions Attempting to gather as many ideas as possible Don’t expect every idea to be implemented May ask customers to contribute If there is an existing site, this is often the baseline functionality –Difficult to remove features

New 5-member Rock band 70s Glam-Rock revival Strong regional following in the NorthWest Looking for national sales Just released 2nd album on an indie label

Shrinking the list Can it be achieved? –Technically –Timescale Maintenance issues (software and content) Importance of feature When there is uncertainty - tend to drop or postpone the feature

Final Feature List Organise the feature list according to the previously identified user groups Possible for a feature to be used by more than one group of users Gain a clear idea of the features each type of user will need to access

Architectural Maps

Mapping Visual representation of feature list translated into pages Site (index) map reflects the structure of the home page Subsection maps add detail to lower level sections of a site

Partial Site Map - Tarantella Home News 1 © (6) Investors Partners (4) Partners (4) Products (3) Products (3) Support (2) Support (2) Press Locations News 2News 3 News Stories (1) About Us (5)

Sub-section: Support Support Home Support Services (2a) Support Services (2a) Registration (2d) Training (2c) Training (2c) Technical Information (2b) Technical Information (2b)

Some rules Consistent numbering used throughout Diagrams should include filenames Build a book (flipchart etc) for the entire site structure

Effective Navigation Site map plans the ways a user can navigate from the home page Users can follow their own non-linear path Links, search engines etc mean that users can arrive at any page Need to provide navigation relevant to context

Levels of navigation Primary navigation –Always present, seen on every page Secondary navigation –Seen on every page within a subsection Tertiary navigation –Individual topics within a subsection Lower levels of navigation are usually links within content

Getting it wrong Too shallow –Sites can try to offer everything from a home page (think Yahoo) –Confuses users with too many choices Too deep –Users have to work through too many levels of hierarchy to find information –Need to make the right choice every time to find content

Inverted Triangle Primary Secondary Tertiary SPECIFIC INFORMATION BROAD CONCEPTS SPECIFIC INFORMATION BROAD CONCEPTS People Carriers RenaultCitroën ManualAutoScénic Picasso Espace

Turning a Map into Navigation Identify Primary Navigation from the Site Map Major sections are good candidates –Support, Products, Partners Groupings typically are not –About Us, News

Persistent Navigation Some other items appear on every page Copyright link Search box These items can appear in a different part of the page from the primary navigation