Boxes And Arrows : The Design Behind the Design

1000pages – that’s not so big :-) I often work for knowledge management sites, enterprise-, government portals and intranets …

Usually I don’t use a diagram software to develope in the phase of fine concept. If I do it I don’t put all the pages just on one sheet – I use a “mother” a “overallmap” and “daughters” for each level one areamap.
... answer to your second question I use the diagramm option not so often – because it isn’t a great convenience

But … ultimately / in the last analysis you will see that diagram softwares won’t help you to solve your problem – in the case of rich and or extensive sites and structures I use “excelsitemaps”

maybe – Intuitect Professional ( http://boxesandarrows.com/topics/view/27554 ) – could help you ( and me :-) ...
I still waiting on a report on one’s experiences!

I use MindManager to create site map. I have found the tool is very efficient to use. It can handle as many pages as you want.
http://www.mindjet.com/products/overview.aspx?google_us=A…

My intranet was about that size when I developed this -
http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/a-map-based-approach

It helped me as I needed to redesign, moving pages and sections around, and this allowed me to visualise the structures and links. By the time I finished the redesign I really knew my site well and had a really fast way of navigating through the visual structure of the site.
Hope its of some help

Patrick

I have managed to come up with a good solution by using Visio brainstorming diagram. It works really well for my problem.

I tried Patrick Walsh’s approach. but i had some problems and didn’t understand it enough i think. But i really agree on the concept of a “agile site map”. (new buzzword alert!)

With the export and import features of brainstorming diagrams in visio pro, it is really mantainable and allows different design approaches.

I would like to write a article/ttorial about my approach and imho its benefits when i have some time. But lets make first this design kick ass. :)

I’d be very interested in reading such an article and in your approach to this problem

Patrick

hey guys, not sure when this was typed. but honestly we had site that goes easily 6 times the size of this. we worked thro the visio cycle and could find the answer to it.. so the visio will take you thro your problem dont worry…