The Web Site Architecture Tutorial      Back

After deciding on the content of your site you need to decide on the framework of the site and how it is all going to fit together (site architecture).

This is a very important stage as it is also the bases of the navigation system for your site.

First you need to make an organisational scheme where by you group content together by common characteristics and workout how to get your web site user from point A to point B in the quickest and easiest way.

To do this first you need to list all the content you are going to have on your site.

Once you have done this you need to get some index cards and place each content item onto a separate index card.

Next you need stack the cards in piles of items that you think belong together.

Once this is done you need to find higher similarities in the cards and pull these cards together to make larger piles of cards. To make a site easy to navigate it is best to keep each content item within three mouse clicks of the main page, so try not to stack the cards anymore than 3 levels deep.

Now you need to name each pile.

By now you should have a logical organisational scheme that should be easy for a user to navigate.