[thelist] process/architecture diagramming

Peter Van Dijck peter at vardus.com
Fri Jul 28 05:32:04 CDT 2000


very interesting thread...
Where can I find actual examples of diagrams?? I tend to draw a very 
general structural thing to show the site structure and workings. A 
detailed sitemap doesn't do me any good usually. (for big sites) I also 
tend to draw hierarchical structure to show the navigation, but not 
including single pages, just first 2 or 3 navigation levels. Then  I also 
do diagrams for each piece of functionality. The main problem is that 
people have this idea of a 'sitemap', but what they're thinking of doesn't 
work for anything bigger than 20 or so pages... So I'm trying to find good 
ways of planning sites, be it diagrams, or text...
Are there any good examples out there?
I've seen some 2.5d z-maps, I'll look up the url if interested..

Peter

> > I gave up on trying to diagram websites long ago.  It simply does not
> > work
> > after your website grows past about 20 pages.  Try drawing a diagram for
> > a
> > website with several hundreds or thousands of pages, not to mention
> > dynamically generated pages.  Not realistic.
>
>You may not diagram every page (and most often you're not doing autopsy 
>diagrams anyway, you're doing IA for an developing site), but you do need 
>to be able to identify sections.
>
>And you will need to map *every* step of a user process (like 
>registration), which may be as detailed as a step for every single field, 
>and all the stuff the server's doing (like validating postcodes, or 
>checking that the re-entered password matches).
>
>As well as a process flow, storyboards are also useful, even if they're 
>only indicative ("here's a typical page in this section") and thrown 
>together in PowerPoint.
>
> >And after you work on
> > sites
> > that large for a while, you simply do not need to diagram the smaller
> > sites
> > anymore.  At least, not for your own use.
>
>Still unsure about this - it's a very good discipline to get into.
>
>Cheers
>Martin
>
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