[Web4lib] reorganizing a web site

[Pons, Lisa (ponslm)]

When we redesigned, we used "Information Architecture for the World Wide Web: Designing Large-Scale Web Sites (Paperback)by Louis Rosenfeld, Peter Morville "

It helped us gather our thoughts, and best of all, by using this as an authority, we tried to eliminate everyone's personal opinions,and make decisions based on data and research. In our six month redesign, planning the architecture actually took the largest chunk of our time.

We wound up initially with four main areas (or chunks), which did hold about everything. Our goal was to try not to overwhelm the user... we imagined going into a large store, and seeing 47 signs (ie links) telling us where to go. Too much. So, we made our categories broad, to be indicated on our home page by four main navigation area. Then within these major cateogories, we added more (ie folders within folders). On our site, each tab represents a folder under the main folder.This has served us pretty well: that is, there are some problems, but overall has been successful.

It also helped cut down on the weekly "but this needs to go on the home page!" pleas.

So far, this has held up for four years. We are also working on a redesign as well... but at this point, no one is arguing for changing the architecture, just the design. 

Of course, one could argue that this approach was too simplistic, and  of course, YMMV. 


Lisa Pons-Haitz

Webmaster
University Libraries
University of Cincinnati
lisa.pons at uc.edu
(513)556-1431

> -----Original Message-----
> From: web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org
> [mailto:web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org]On Behalf Of Kathy Gaynor
> Sent: Tuesday, November 01, 2005 11:33 AM
> To: web4lib at webjunction.org
> Subject: [Web4lib] reorganizing a web site
> 
> 
> We are in the midst of a complete redesign and want to use 
> this opportunity 
> to reorganize our library's web site 
> (<http://library.webster.edu>).  We 
> started many years ago as a web site with a handful of pages 
> that we threw 
> into the root directory.  We have made subdirectories as 
> needed over the 
> years in a somewhat haphazard fashion (gee, the root 
> directory is getting 
> pretty long, let's move some stuff out of there).
> 
> So far we have looked at our content and have done a rough 
> inventory.  We 
> have assigned working names to groups of similar files (e.g. 
> "Facility 
> Information", "Instructional Materials", etc.).  These are 
> rather broad 
> categories to my mind.
> 
> So here are my questions:
> 
> 1. How have you gone about organizing the files on your 
> server?  Do you put 
> everything under a subdirectory (e.g. 
> ../facility/hours.html)?  Or are some 
> things left in the root directory (e.g. ../hours.html)?
> 
> 2. How narrow do you make your subdirectories (categories)?
> 
> Any advice, war stories, etc. that you could offer related to 
> this topic 
> would be much appreciated.
> 
> 
> Kathy M. Gaynor, Reference Librarian		
> Emerson Library
> Webster University				
> 470 E. Lockwood Ave.			
> St. Louis, MO  63119
> (314) 961-2660 x7811
> (314) 968-7113 fax
> kgaynor at webster.edu
> 
> 
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