Information Management

How you design and manage information is going to help determine the success of your Web site. Whether you're designing for the Web-at-large or for an intranet or extranet, the gathering, placement, and maintenance of the information you provide is one of the largest challenges you will face as a contributor. Visitors to a site require your expertise to empower their experience to providing the information and services they are after in an efficient - and timely - manner.

Lack of organization in the foundational stages of a site's plan is precisely why so many Web sites are a confusing rather than pleasant experience for visitors. The Web is filled with poorly organized sites due to a lack of experience on the contributors' & designer's part; no understanding of audience, intent, and the Web environment; and an inability to anticipate growth. All of these pitfalls can be avoided by learning logical skills that address the management issues that a Web site demands.

A good place to begin is to organize the information you need by preparing a format to fit the data you gather into. This forces you to look closely at your goals, your audience, and to try to understand how to fit your information into a hypermedia environment.

The key issues to information management that help to build a powerful foundation and look ahead to the design and implementation of an intended site are as follows:

• Selecting content
     Survey of current content
  
  
• RE-purposing content for the Web
  
• Writing for the Web
     Intent, Clarity, Precision, Voice, Copyediting
  
  
• Preparing a storyboard or site map

Some might argue that this isn't Web Design. you're looking for the meat-and-potatoes of design work: graphics, typography, layout. Think first before you feel compelled to rush through the planning and information management stages of a site's design.

" As important as the visual aspects, there's also the more abstract ones such as navigation, structuring of content, use of language, and other media in support of communicating ideas."

Yes, great art can be made in a creative frenzy, but refined art takes a combination of practice, planning, skill, and creative insight.

Please see - Web Site Development & Design

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