Building A Structure

Structuring your information means more than just sorting it into categories.

Structuring is about more than just sorting your content into categories. Underlying your structure are questions about how information is prioritised, what the audience wants to know and what they want to do with the information. The answers to these questions take shape as you start to arrange the content into groups and topics.

Index cards are very useful for this. Put each topic on a card on its own, you may want to add notes or sub-categories to it later. Some categories will fall naturally into place, others will fit in several places. Just duplicate the cards and add them whereever seems appropriate. You might want to add notes to your cards about how you think the content should be handled. Perhaps you want to add animation at a certain point or you think a subject should be handled as an illustrated tutorial?

The structure will gradually emerge as you sort through your ideas, although you may well find that there are several ways to organise your content. Play with your structure until it starts to feel comfortable. Which pages should be links from your home page? Which should be further down the hierarchy? This is where knowledge of your target audience is useful. Put yourself in the user's position and take another look at your structure. How will you navigate around this site? Where do you expect things to be? Do you need to cross-link some sections? Will you need to provide a site map? How many links does it take you to get from your home page to any of your information?

Refine the topic groups. Move topics around until they work. Many topics can cross category boundaries. Where are your users going to go looking for the information? It’s not always obvious. What seems logical to you will not necessarily be logical to someone who’s never seen your information before. Remember, you are familiar with your own material, the user isn’t and this can make a big difference in approach. Involving other people in this process can be very useful. Watch how they look for information in your categories. You may well get some surprises.