Sitemap

A visual way to categorise the content of an interactive application and get a grip on structure and navigation.

What

A sitemap is a diagram depicting a hierarchical overview of the content categories in a website or app. It shows how the different information categories relate to each other. A sitemap does not show every single page in a website but is a high level diagram of different page categories.

Use when

After you gathered the intended content of a website or app and composed a taxonomy that meets user needs and business requirements site maps are the next step in creating the structure of a website.

Why

Sitemaps are a flexible, visual way to create and communicate an overview of the structure of a website.

Sitemaps provide:

• an hierarchical overview of the content of a website or app;
• a visual tool to categorize content;
• a tool to create the structure of website;
• a starting point to create a navigation design.

How

First create a classification of the content then create a hierarchal diagram that shows the different categories and how they relate, in the shape of boxes connected with lines.

Examples

Assignment

Create a site map based on a classification of the content of your intended interactive application

Step 1 write all relevant categories on separate cards

Step 2 use the cards to determine the intended hierarchy and structure of your website

After these steps, check the user story list. Add and/or adjust stories if necessary.

Tutorials and Talks