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.

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

Top Level

Level Two

Level Three

Link

Document Type

Notes

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

inventory

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.

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:export

  4. Rename the Column Headers:

  5. copy & pasteNow 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

content map creation
  • Open Visio
  • In the Toolbar > Tools > Add-ons > Business > Organization Chart Wizard
content map creation
  • Select to create using a file
  • Click Next
content map creation
  • Select your Excel file
  • Click Next
content map creation
  • Locate file: visio-export.xls
  • Click Next
content map creation
  • In the drop down box, for the field Reports To, select Relates_to
  • Click Next
content map creation
  • name should be the only displayed field
  • Click Next
content map creation
  • Leave Shape Data Fields blank
  • Click Next
content map creation
  • Click the dropdown box and select your top level name
  • Click Next
content map creation

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.

save as

Saving your Visio drawing:

  1. 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!
  2. 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