Creating The Flow Chart

Storyboard your site map

Why? Because of the nature of their design, web sites

don't lend themselves to traditional, linear outlines.

Instead, create a simple site map with a flow chart. Your topmost box will be your splash page. Identify the major areas of your site. Identify the areas subordinate to each main area.

Be careful to keep similar areas parallel in the flow chart.

Use the flow chart to get a sense of the framework of your site and the relative importance of the various elements of your site.

What is it? A flow chart, or storyboard, is an illustration of

the relationships among the various individual files (i.e., web pages) that constitute your site. The storyboard will be a picture of the levels of your site.  You might want to base your storyboard on your

sentence outline. You might want to start with a blank sheet of paper

and Post-It notes: write the titles of topics and subtopics on the Post-It notes and experiment with their arrangement on the blank sheet.

You can use the organization chart software that comes with Microsoft Word to create a storyboard.

High-end web page editing software can also help you create your storyboard.

A Simple Storyboard Site Map For this site you are likely to want a home

page with links to the major sections of your site.

Moving On As you develop the individual pages in each area of

your site, you will add boxes subordinate to each of the boxes listing the main areas of your site Use the flow chart to keep track of your navigational

structure. Each page should also link back to its parent page. Each child page should also link back to its parent and its

aunts and uncles. In addition, all pages should contain your address file (i.e.,

an e-mail address to contact you as author of the site and a Last Update date) and a link to your home page.

Remember that your storyboard structure must reflect the structure of your web site and your web site should take advantage of the nonlinear structure of the web itself.

Incorrect Storyboard

Sometimes, however, an early storyboard will project a linear view of the web site, a view that implies that the visitor will be directed to view your files in a particular order.

Here is a storyboard that implies that a site section is to be viewed in a linear fashion:

Correct Storyboard

But in a typical well-designed web site, a section of the site has a cover page. From that cover page, the site visitor can access any of the other pages related to that subject. 

Here is what such a storyboard would look like:

Check for Understanding