subject: Understanding Web Architecture [print this page] Everyone hates disorganizationEveryone hates disorganization. A disorganized person is often not considered for an important job. Even you would get depressed if you find that your things are too cluttered and your ideas disorganized. It is hard to work around with a disorganized person. Likewise, you would not want to invest in, or even use, a disorganized website. Fortunately, if youre planning to build a web site, web architects are available to organize your ideas.
Web architecture is a phase in your web development project that begins right after you have come up with a website plan. After planning, it does not go to development right away, drafting the architecture comes first. In web architecture, you must already have a clear idea of your website objectives, content requirements, and user groups.
Website objectives are those goals that your website must reach. It might be sales, visitors, or sponsorships. These goals must be measureable. By delegating these goals to your web architect, he can then prioritize your goals. In these phase, it is important for you to relay the goals clearly. The architect should be exposed to your goals so that your goals become his too.
Another thing that should be clear before plotting the web architecture is the content requirements. Content requirements are the information on what the website will do. The web architect must know if youre going to sell something, create a community, or simply create an art gallery. The content would dictate how the web site should look like.
Before web architecture begins, it is also required to identify the user group. The user group refers to the kind of people who will use your website, your target market. Will the user group be musicians, sports enthusiasts, or shoppers? This information is essential because the web sites design should be appropriate so that your user group would not find your web site odd.
Web architecture also involves site maps. It is in building site maps that pages are named so that search engines would find it easily, and task flow. Task flow is just like a site map, only it includes how the users would navigate across the pages. It plans where the user will be redirected in case the user clicks a button.
