Michael Smethhurst Information Architect @ BBC radio labs
How we make websites
A Slideshare presentation of the text. Inevitably, a bit technical: the BBC build database driven websites which handle a huge amount of content. Also, and understandable by anyone interested in building any sort of website, some of the sketches and diagrams they use to communicate.
Some extracts
“Concentrate on modelling real (physical and metaphysical) things not web pages.
Run focus groups and speak to users. Get them to sketch their understanding of the domain and again sketch back at them.
Try to think of your website as a coherent whole; not as a collection of individual products. And as ever, don’t expose your internal organisational structures through your website. Users don’t care about departments or reporting lines.
Data licensing is one of those areas that often gets ignored in project planning.
At Audio and Music we tend to use large walls and lots of post-its to design our URIs… It’s important not to confuse URI design with site structure and user journeys…URIs are your promise to the web and your users.
Never stop testing.”