Datasheet

The goals of web design
15Lesson 1, Planning Your Website
1
Information architecture
Design is not just about visuals. The word design comes from the Latin word designare, which
means to mark out, devise, or choose. This is a good reminder that you should choose or
plan the structure of a website before you consider the visuals. The term used to describe
the planning of a website’s structure is information architecture. Information architecture is
concerned with providing optimal navigation paths for the user and helping them get from
point A to point B. For example, the user may need to go from the home page to the best
recipe for a mango/banana smoothie.
A site map is often used in the discipline of information architecture.
In more formal terms, information architecture is the process of organizing the site’s content
and de ning the hierarchy and navigation of the site. Since most sites have a “client” of some
sort, information architecture is also where you discuss the scope of the site. Scope relates
to the number of pages in a site as well as the features and functionality the site includes.
Asingle-page website with some text and a few images would be a site with a small scope,
while a 200-page website that includes a video library, database integration, and sends alerts
to a user’s mobile phone would be a site with a large scope.
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