Professional SharePoint® 2007 Web Content Management Development: Building Publishing Sites with Office SharePoint Server 2007

1.2. Designing and Planning a Successful WCM Solution

Anyone who has tried to find their way around a new city knows that the experience varies considerably between a planned city, such as most of New York or Washington, DC, versus an unplanned city such as London or Boston. A planned city has some kind of logical organization or grid layout that makes navigation much easier, whereas an unplanned city may seem like a twisting maze of confusing passages, presenting quite a challenge for newcomers. A Web site is no different, and a little planning and forethought will go a long way in terms of site usability and control.

Information architecture is the emerging field of designing the structure of shared information environments, such as Web sites, to improve usability and facilitate the finding of information. Professional information architects often have a background in library science or cognitive psychology; and depending on the scope of a project, it may be desirable to enlist such a specialist to lead the effort. On smaller projects, or projects for which the basic structure is well understood, the information architecture may be created by the analysts and design team, with input from developers, users, and other stakeholders.

It is important to remember that every WCM solution has an information architecture, whether it is designed to be compelling and intuitive or left to evolve randomly.

MOSS comes loaded with a very simple information architecture and visual design that ...