Attractive Vectormaps: A Call for Well-Arranged Webmaps

If a user has a choice between two maps he/she will often use the map with the 'better' design. This means a map, besides being readable, should be visually attractive, comparable with other maps and eventually deliver some tools to navigate and interact with a map. A further problem is that a lot of maps are not always self-explaining by default. SVG offers some possibility to make maps well designed. The readability is dependent on several factors: e g. the chosen colors, used fonts or minimal dimensions for symbols, line-styles and fill-patterns. The article is pointing to basic principles for designing visually attractive maps.

Dahinden, Tobias. SVG Open (2002). Design>Web Design>Graphic Design>Sitemaps

Dynamic Dueling: Grappling with Java-Based Site Maps

When I compare the usability of the highly graphical MAPA dynamic site map with that of a more traditional text-based table of contents, the traditional approach wins hands-down. You can scan the contents much faster and you don't need a fast connection or a Java-enabled browser.

Morville, Peter. Semantic Studios (1997). Design>Web Design>Information Design>Sitemaps

Hypertext Maps

Hypertext mapping has long challenged writers, and perplexed hypertext system designers. Clear, attractive, and informative maps help readers and writers understand the structure of complex hypertexts. Conversely, in the absence of adequate mapping tools, many writers fall back on simplistic link models like sequential lists and outlines.

Bernstein, Mark. Eastgate Systems (2003). Design>Web Design>Hypertext>Sitemaps

The Lazy IA's Guide to Making Sitemaps

Sitemaps are common deliverables, desired by clients who want a visual representation of a site. Since they are rarely used to make decisions, information architects may not consider them the valuable tools they are. The effort required to make and maintain them requires time that might be better used elsewhere. In fact, I would suggest that making sure the little boxes line up is a waste of an IA's mental abilities.

Turbek, Stephen. Boxes and Arrows (2006). Articles>Web Design>Information Design>Sitemaps

A Map-Based Approach to a Content Inventory

A map-based approach to building a content inventory allows it to be a tool from the concept stages and throughout the life of the website. Patrick Walsh tells us why to use them, shows us how to create the maps, and how to leverage them over the long haul.

Walsh, Patrick C. Boxes and Arrows (2007). Design>Web Design>Information Design>Sitemaps

Maps of Web Sites

Web site maps are created by webmasters and content providers to help users navigate and search complex web sites. A variety of styles of map are used, many based on organisational charts. Presented here are some of the best examples from around the Web.

Cybergeography (2004). Design>Web Design>Information Design>Sitemaps

Navigation  

Navigation refers to the method used to find information within a Web site. A navigation page is used primarily to help users locate and link to destination pages. A Web site's navigation scheme and features should allow users to find and access information effectively and efficiently. When possible, this means designers should keep navigation-only pages short. Designers should include site maps, and provide effective feedback on the user's location within the site. To facilitate navigation, designers should differentiate and group navigation elements and use appropriate menu types. It is also important to use descriptive tab labels, provide a clickable list of page contents on long pages, and add ‘glosses' where they will help users select the correct link. In well-designed sites, users do not get trapped in dead-end pages.

Usability.gov (2006). Design>Web Design>User Interface>Sitemaps

The Problem(s) With Sitemaps

I believe the most important thing to consider when building a sitemap is what kind of experience do you want to give the user.

Van Dijck, Peter. evolt (2000). Design>Web Design>Information Design>Sitemaps

A Shared Reality: Maps as Metaphor

Maps help us navigate. On the Internet, finding things has become the big challenge. Death by a thousand clicks is the bane of any net user. The reason? We are attempting to shoe-horn the metaphor of maps–tools for navigating complex spaces–into existing metaphors, such as the infinite book that is the World Wide Web.

Malamud, Carl. Mappa Mundi (1999). Design>Information Design>Sitemaps>Geography

Site Diagrams: Mapping an Information Space

Site diagrams can be quite helpful in answering all kinds of hard questions. How to create the right diagram became a personal challenge for Jason Withrow. He shares his story through tips and techniques…

Withrow, Jason. Boxes and Arrows (2004). Design>Web Design>Information Design>Sitemaps

Site Map Usability

One of the oldest hypertext usability principles is to visualize the structure of the information space to help users understand where they can go. On today's Web, site maps are a common approach to facilitating navigation. Unfortunately, they are often not very successful at it. We conducted a usability study of site maps on 10 websites, and our main conclusion is that users are reluctant to use site maps and sometimes have problems even finding them. Considering that site maps could be particularly useful to people who are lost, it is not good news that they are often hard to find.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2002). Articles>Usability>Web Design>Sitemaps

Site Maps and Hypertext Links: "Food" for Search Engine Robots

Site maps and links are so important for search engine optimisation - find out why.

Webcredible (2003). Design>Information Design>Sitemaps>Search Engine Optimization

A Sitemap on Every Page

About how to use a sitemap on all of one's web pages. Includes some statistics, that you will see below, that encourage rethinking navigation on small web sites. A sitemap on every page is an interesting idea. I've only seen this done in a few cases, and usually it is not done well. However, Peter obviously spent some time working on his and he solicited feedback form users.

Van Dijck, Peter. WebWord (2000). Design>Web Design>Information Design>Sitemaps

Sitemaps and Site Indexes: What They Are and Why You Should Have Them

Sitemaps and site indexes are forms of supplemental navigation. They give users a way to navigate a site without having to use the global navigation. By providing a way to visualize and understand the layout and structure of the site, a sitemap can help a lost or confused user find her way.

Fox, Chiara. Boxes and Arrows (2003). Design>Web Design>Information Design>Sitemaps

Spruced-Up Site Maps

The clean-n-simple site map gets a nice haircut and and a shoe-shine as Kim Siever shows us how to hook custom bullet styles to troublesome nested lists.

Siever, Kim. List Apart, A (2005). Design>Web Design>User Centered Design>Sitemaps

Web Site Maps from Dynamic Diagrams

The Web site map is one of the key tools that site designers can provide to help surfers successfully navigate through their site. However, the art and science of creating intuitive and useful Web site maps is still in its infancy.

Mappa Mundi (2000). Design>Web Design>Information Design>Sitemaps

XML Topic Maps (XTM) 1.0

This specification provides a model and grammar for representing the structure of information resources used to define topics, and the associations (relationships) between topics. Names, resources, and relationships are said to be characteristics of abstract subjects, which are called topics. Topics have their characteristics within scopes: i.e. the limited contexts within which the names and resources are regarded as their name, resource, and relationship characteristics. One or more interrelated documents employing this grammar is called a 'topic map.'

TopicMaps (2001). Resources>Information Design>XML>Sitemaps

CSS SiteMap

Recently I needed to crank out a visual sitemap (or is it a directory tree?) from a rather large site and had a devil of a time finding decent tools to help. Everything I found in my search was either too costly, too complicated, or too unattractive for my purposes. A case in point was CSS Diagrams—a damn fine piece of work (and free), but it really didn’t suit my needs. But it did give me an idea. Why not roll my own sitemap diagram in HTML and CSS?

BeTech (2007). Design>Web Design>CSS>Sitemaps

Living With Topic Maps and RDF

This paper is about the relationship between the topic map and RDF standards families. It compares the two technologies and looks at ways to make it easier for users to live in a world where both technologies are used. This is done by looking at how to convert information back and forth between the two technologies, how to convert schema information, and how to do queries across both information representations. Ways to achieve all of these goals are presented.

Garshol, Lars Marius. Ontopia (2004). Articles>Information Design>Sitemaps>XML

Metadata on the Web: On the Integration of RDF and Topic Maps

Meta-information provides an additional layer of abstraction on web documents that can be used for sophisticated applications relying on the precise semantic characterization of their content. Two leading standards, RDF and Topic Maps, compete as the model through which expressing metadata. These two models are sufficiently different as to make back and forth conversion a difficult and imprecise task. In this paper, we introduce META, a set of integrated tools helping in editing, navigating and converting metadata expressed in either language.

Ciancarini, Paolo, Riccardo Gentilucci, Marco Pirruccio, Valentina Presutti and Fabio Vitali. Extreme Markup Languages (2003). Articles>Information Design>Sitemaps>Metadata

Metadata? Thesauri? Taxonomies? Topic Maps!

Information architects have so far applied known and well-tried tools from library science to solve this problem, and now topic maps are sailing up as another potential tool for information architects. This raises the question of how topic maps compare with the traditional solutions, and that is the question this paper attempts to address.

Garshol, Lars Marius. Ontopia (2004). Articles>Information Design>Metadata>Sitemaps

Site Map Usability

New user testing of site maps shows that they are still useful as a secondary navigation aide, and that they're much easier to use than they were during our research 7 years ago.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2008). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Sitemaps

The Tao of Topic Maps: Seamless Knowledge in Practice

Topic Maps have figured very prominently at all recent IDEAlliance conferences, with a large number of interesting presentations on various aspects of the Topic Maps paradigm. However, at every conference there are always many people who are encountering Topic Maps for the first time. For those people, experiencing that something they have never heard of before - or don't quite get - is the "buzz of the conference" can be very frustrating. This presentation is designed to cater to the needs of such people by providing an introduction to the basic concepts of topic maps in a lively and informal manner.

Pepper, Steve. IDEAlliance (2004). Articles>Information Design>Sitemaps>XML

Topic Maps in Content Management

This paper shows how topic maps can address the limitations of traditional content management systems while building on their strengths. The term ITMS (Integrated Topic Management System) is coined for a content management system based on topic maps, and the paper shows what is necessary to build such systems, as well as what benefits they bring. The use of the WebDAV protocol to layer topic maps over content stores is also considered, and an abstract topic map-to-content store protocol is sketched, which corresponds very closely to WebDAV.

Garshol, Lars Marius. Ontopia (2008). Articles>Content Management>Information Design>Sitemaps