Comments on: A Map-Based Approach to a Content Inventory

By: caildesign

caildesign — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Great article! I couldn’t get the stencil to work in Visio 2007 though :/

By: jonathan

jonathan — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Interesting. A maintainable site map – a rarity in my experience!

You don’t say if you’re using a CMS for the intranet or not – are you? If you are, I’m curious as to why it would not be able to provide you with a basic content inventory (albeit not like this of course).

Also, I assume you will discard this tool once the intranet has been properly re-designed, is that right? Maintaining an external model of an intranet to allow people to understand the information space of that intranet would seem rather bizarre…

By: pwalsh

pwalsh — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Jonathan thanks for your comments,
We do use a CMS for the intranet but it is curiously not designed to manage content effectively. What the CMS churns out is a list of all my pages and some rudimentary data regarding review dates etc. I work in an area (roads and transport) where the information turn over is fairly high and I need to ensure that information is current and in the right places. A page or document may be linked to many other pages such as document lists, A-Z ‘s etc and pages in other categories. The maps help me to visualise all linkages when changes need to be made or new documents inserted.
I will be maintaining the maps an an integral part of managing the intranet as periodic re-evaluations of the intranet will be required and events, such as major legislation, can have a profound effect on the shape of the system. Also, as stated, I think it would be of great help to anyone who suceeds me in managing the intranet.

By: pwalsh

pwalsh — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Cail,
Sorry that you couldn’t use the stencil. I’m not an expert in Visio. If anyone out there has the answer could you please post,

Patrick

By: smallfarm

smallfarm — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Great article – I’ve always been a big fan of the Beck Map.

The steps below should help with saving a stencil.

With the stencil open right click on the title bar of the stencil then click save as. Make sure the stencil is saved with the .vss extension. You should then be able to save it off and link to it.

Craig

By: jamiefromcleveland

jamiefromcleveland — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

It’s always interesting when several simple things are brought together to create a unique and eloquent solution to something that otherwise stymies us! (“Eureka!”). And the familiar metro visuals make your content management approachable to a great number of folks.

It seems to me that you could combine Visio elements and capabilities into all sorts of visual metaphors and inventions. One could indeed use your techniques on a traditional flowchart. Maybe you want to do something visual with less inherent linearity (like a metro map is), for example Dan Brown’s bubble diagram site map in which circles and distance indicate relationships (“Three Lessons From Tufte: Special Deliverable #6″). Or if the web site uses an interface that is itself is a metaphor for something, you could actually represent that metaphor in the hyperlinked sitemap–for example an interactive anatomy lesson in which the user clicks on a general region to learn about the systems in that part of the body. Machines or processes are also candidates for bringing the interactivity closer to the visual form it’s meant to provide content for. If nothing else, it may make it easier for the stakeholders to visualize the final form and understand the reasons behind the info organization.

By: emilyjthompson

emilyjthompson — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I was unable to open the Visio file as well. Would you be willing to post the web page version of the tool?

By: patrickwalsh

patrickwalsh — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Jamie,
Thanks for your comments. I agree totally. The metro visuals work for me as I like the way that you can fit a lot of information onto a single page and it still stays comprehensible to me.
However I think you make a very good point. I feel that the right visual structure for a particular perspective can convey something really meaningful and the metro paradigm is probably just one of very many possible solutions. I work in enterprise IA and see examples every day of people using flowcharts, graphs and other visuals in inappropriate ways. But when they are used correctly they can be a very powerful tool.

By: patrickwalsh

patrickwalsh — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Emily,
Sorry you are having trouble downloading the file. The basic stencil can be found in Visio under – File/Shapes/Map/Metro shapes.

By: noah

noah — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Hi Patrick,

This is an interesting approach. I really like the accessibility of the final map product.

I don’t know if you used consistent axes for each map and sub-map, but I’d be curious to hear how you chose directions for the various lines. My mental model says other intranet pages should be “sibling” pages, to the side (on a horizontal line), child pages should be below (on a vertical line), and external pages are “out there” (maybe at an upward diagonal). Of course number of nodes to manage will affect your layout approach. I do like the choice of colors for each line.

For deeper thoughts on diagram layout, please check out my master’s thesis, which is exactly about how to straighten up spaghetti diagrams: http://www.complexdiagrams.com/

Cheers, Noah