The final step of the design phase included mocking up the page in Photoshop. Granted, the interaction and motion of the elements cannot be simulated in Photoshop. But a developer could work from this mockup with accompanying annotations and notes and discussion.
Is your company thinking of updating their website and you need to figure out what content already exists on your site?
AND what new content they want to include?
AND what old content should be carried over in to the new site?
Then is sounds like you need to do a content audit.
According to Wikipedia a content audit is the process of evaluating content elements and information assets on some part or all of a website.
In a related term, content inventory, is a quantitative analysis of a website. It simply logs what is on a website. A content inventory will answer the question: “What is there?” and can be the start of a website review. A content audit will answer the question: “Is it any good?”
Specifically, Slater states that the content audit can answer five questions:
I came across a great, and very in-depth resource to assist you with your content analysis. On The Moz Blog there’s a great article called “How To Do a Content Audit – Step-by-Step” and it chock full of great resources to help you get started.
Here is a breakdown of some of the topics covered:
Enjoy and good luck!
Sometimes it can be difficult to to get started on a web project. Where does one begin? Well maybe this crafty little info graphic from Designmodo can give you some pointers.
I find it helpful to always see what’s happening on the market now. It’s a good way to give me some inspiration, and see where things stand in the world of design right now.
Collaboration is truly valuable. I revisited the truth in that statement this week while working on the CoCo website redesign project I am involved in.
The task at hand was to get the website organized so that I could start thinking about new design possibilities for the site. But before I could do that, I had to have a clean and organized Information Architecture structure to work with. Sadly, the stakeholders did not understand the importance of not only doing a content analysis of the current site, but thinking about where they wanted the site to go. I understand it is very difficult for non design and web people to see the potential that change can bring. So I don’t blame them at all for not having the forsight to dream about the site’s potential. But if they could not do it, we had to.
So my fabulous content manager Wendy and I worked one evening to really get a site map organized. We talked about how the site exists now. We discussed the ways they organization wanted to change and the new features they wanted to include. And we debated what the navigation terms would be used.
It was a great collaboration and it was so helpful to have someone to hash out this process with. So in the case of working on a complicated process, like creating an organized and cohesive site map, two heads are better than one.
I came across a great resource the other day that I would like to share with you. UXPIN is a paid service for wireframing websites, tablet and mobile pages online. Though UXPIN is a paid resource, they do offer several valuable and FREE resources. One resource I would like to mention now is their free ebook “The Guide to Wireframing.”
Some of the resources I like in particular are:
Yes, it is kind of a pain to have to provide your email to get the book sent to you. But for the UI pattern aspect alone, I think it’s worth checking out. Enjoy.