Site Map Diagrams
A visual site map 17 is quick to make, fairly expressive and easy to change. People have all sorts of methods for building site map diagrams. Whatever your tool, the diagram is a useful way to demonstrate hierarchy. It clearly shows the relationships between pages and tells you where your website is too shallow or deep.
What’s it for?
To visually explain the relationships between pages on your website.
What’s good about it?
Nothing better illustrates the hierarchy of a website than a diagram with lines and arrows indicating the relationships between pages. Clients naturally understand it.
What’s bad about it?
The actual relationships between pages can be hard to grasp. What looks good on a chart might not work well on a website. And a site map diagram is not really useful during the development phase, quickly becoming a dead documents.
In sum
A site map diagram is a quick way to sketch navigation and hierarchy. Don’t try to cram in other bits of information that just don’t fit.
A few resources to learn more about site maps and diagrams:
A Visual Vocabulary for Sitemaps 18
The Lazy Information Architect’s Guide to Making Sitemaps
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