Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, Second Edition

Blueprints

Blueprints show the relationships between pages and other content components, and can be used to portray organization, navigation, and labeling systems. They are often referred to as “sitemaps,” and do in fact have much in common with those supplementary navigation systems. Both the diagram and the navigation system display the “shape” of the information space in overview, functioning as a condensed map for site developers and users respectively.

High-Level Architecture Blueprints

High-level blueprints are often created by information architects as part of a top-down information architecture process. Starting with the main page, the information architect might use the process of developing a blueprint to iteratively flesh out more and more of the architecture, adding subsidiary pages, increasing levels of detail, and working out the navigation from the top down. (Blueprints can also support bottom-up design, such as displaying a content model’s content chunks and relationships; we discuss these uses later in the chapter.)

The very act of shaping ideas into the more formal structure of a blueprint forces you to become realistic and practical. If brainstorming takes you to the top of the mountain, blueprinting can bring you back down to the valley of reality. Ideas that seemed brilliant on the whiteboard may not pan out when you attempt to organize them in a practical manner. It’s easy to throw around concepts such as “personalization” and “adaptive information architectures.” ...