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Part 2 - Creating your site map manually

Your finished spreadsheet should look like this: example site inventory

Hints and disclaimers:

1. You are mapping this as a person would move through this site, going from link to link downward (not sideways). Try to uncover the site hierarchy!
2. There is no one correct answer to any site inventory. Do your best.
3. Do the inventory first, then come back and add the numbering.
4. Keep it simple!! This is a short exercise for a class, not a real job! If you inventory and organize 30-40 of the most important pages, that will be more than sufficient!

Creating the Inventory:

1 - Begin with a sketch (paper and pencil). Open your Browser. With paper and pencil, draw a quick list of the major areas of your web site.

• The home page is the top level
• Next level would be the major navigation. Start with the header navigation links. Add the sidebar and or footer navigation, if that seems logical. Keep in mind that the sidebar is often reserved for local navigation.
• The third level may have repeating pages. If a second level category is a links page of articles, then the third level would be the individual articles themselves. If the pages are the same in content type, indicate a pagestack
  "Use a pagestack to indicate a group of functionally identical pages whose navigational properties are immaterial to the macrostructure of the site." jjg

2 - Open excel and create a new spreadsheet with these categories:

Top Level

Level Two

Level Three

Link

Document Type

Notes

• In the column Top Level, put the title of your home page. Skip over 2 columns and insert the homepage link. In the next column, Document Type put some information about what kind of a document this is (html, php, form, shopping cart, article, search page, etc). You can be very loose about the Document Type category. Lastly, put some Notes about the page.
• Your major category pages will be listed under Level Two. Then insert the Link url, document type and notes in the appropriate columns.
• Level Three will be the next level of pages below your major category pages. These will all be linked from the major category (Level Two) pages.

You should now have a stepped spreadsheet, which look like this:

Numbering the pages

There are no hard and fast standards for page numbering, but you can see the usual accepted numbering in the spreadsheet above. This set has 2 decimal places because we are going 3 levels deep. If we were going 4 levels deep, we would need 3 decimal places.

• Top level = 1.0.0
• Second levels = 1.1.0, 1.2.0, 1.3.0, 1.5.0, 1.5.0, 1.6.0 etc.
• Below each second level, place the third level with it's related numbers. In the example above, this is clearest for the pages under 1.6.0
• Third level = 1.1.1, 1.1.2, 1.1.3, 1.1.4, 1.1.5, 1.1.6, etc

Once you establish the levels, it is completely arbitrary which page is 1.1.0 and which is 1.2.0. You should try to have like content next to each other. The about page might be numbered in close proximity to the subscribe page. It doesn't really matter though. It is the hierarchical ordering and relationships that are important. the numbers are a convenience for keeping track of page groups.

Creating your Content Map

example of a Content Map (created in Visio)

Option 1: Create a (content map) flow chart by hand or manually using Excel

1. You are on your own here. I assume that somewhere in your studies, you have created a flow chart.
2. The chart should reflect your page inventory and show the movement of a person through the site.

If you are creating your content map by hand, you can stop here. The directions below are for creating the content map in Visio.

Option 2: Use Visio to create your flow chart

1. Download and install the trial version of Visio.

Preparing the site inventory to import into Visio

1. Still in your Excel spreadsheet....
2. Copy the first 3 columns (Top Level, Second Level and Third Level)
3. In Excel, click on the second worksheet and paste the first 3 columns into the first three columns of this worksheet. Your sheet should look like this:
   
   
4. Rename the Column Headers:
   
   
5. Now you need to move all of the pages into the Column A. Just click and drag the pages over.
   
6. In Column B, you need to copy and paste the name of the page that is the 'parent' of the page in Column A.
   So, for 1.1.1 Articles - links, the parent page (Related_to) is 1.1.0 Current Issue.
   For page 1.5.1 Architecture News the parent page is 1.5.0 News
   
   You might want to view my example spreadsheet again
   
7. When you have this spreadsheet done, copy this entire worksheet (this worksheet only, not the other worksheet).
   Paste it into a new workbook and save that workbook as visio-export.xls
   
8. Close excel.
   

Some important things to note:

1. Cell A2 must have the top level page (your home page).
2. The page relationships between the page and its parent page must be correct.
3. The file that you are going to import into Visio should have only one worksheet, not both worksheets!
   

Creating the Content Map in Visio

	Open Visio In the Toolbar > Tools > Add-ons > Business > Organization Chart Wizard
	Select to create using a file Click Next
	Select your Excel file Click Next
	Locate file: visio-export.xls Click Next
	In the drop down box, for the field Reports To, select Relates_to Click Next
	name should be the only displayed field Click Next
	Leave Shape Data Fields blank Click Next
	Click the dropdown box and select your top level name Click Next
	Visio will automatically generate your content map. You can rearrange the boxes by hand or by using the toolbar icons. The icon on the far left will reset things if you really hate it.
	Saving your Visio drawing: Save a copy of your drawing in the native Visio format (.vsd). This will save the pieces of your chart as separate, movable pieces. This is essential if you need to come back and edit your content map! Save a copy to submit as a graphic image - either jpg or gif.

Part 1 - Overview of the Site Inventory

Part 3 - Alternatives to manually creating the site inventory