Designing a New Site Structure

After doing research on what people hoped to see in the new site, my focus turned to site structure.

My goal was to produce a drawing of the new site's pages--the sections and subsections and how they would be arranged. (Structural drawings can show how deeply buried important information is, as well as show if some sections are too cumbersome and need to be split into subsections. They also act as visual aids to make it easier to describe site ideas to other people.)

From surveys I had learned that people wanted easier navigation in the new site. Their comments showed that they weren't finding things where they expected them in the existing site. (This wasn't surprising -- a structural drawing of the existing site suggested it would be hard to find some important pages, and some of pages in the main navigation weren't important.)

One specific problem seemed to be too many categories that weren't different enough from one another. For example, the existing site navigation includes links to Services as well as to Grants (which we offer) and eLearning (which is what we support). Site visitors sometimes had to click through all three to see how we could help them.

Another trouble spot was the Resources section, which provides online information related to eLearning and technology. Over time, it had grown to be several linked pages without a central organizing theme. Site visitors who visited Resources had to work had to locate the information they wanted or, more likely, they gave up.

After examining the content we had and comparing it to the suggestions from the surveys, I created a structural drawing that organized the pages of the site. Here's a snapshot:


This structural diagram was just a starting point. My ideas for site structure changed over time as I tested it with people inside my group and people who come to my group for services. (I'll discuss how it changed as a result of user testing later on.)