Website Taxonomy and Navigation

This is an important aspect of designing a website information architecture.

Firstly establish core content categories for site; you can create a pin board or "working wall" to map content assets.

Ideally, only include content that is likely to be sought out/attractive, valued and read by the audience. Don't necessarily seek to include content for the sake of having a larger site or simply because you can - you will be creating a massive maintenance overhead.

Remember users are mostly time poor and have a specific goal in mind.

Map the Working Wall to a Taxonomy (or a hierarchy of subject matter from the general to the specific), a core foundation element of a website. This may also known as a classification scheme, a directory, a categorisation scheme.

Taxonomies are structures that provide a way of classifying things to make them easy to identify and locate. It is a system for naming and organising things that share similar characteristics.

A taxonomy (and you can have more than one) could be based on activity, task, topic, audience, geography or chronology (time).

An aspect of a good taxonomy is it being one in which content is distributed evenly across the classification scheme.

The number of levels is a compromise between enabling precision and not confusing the user with too much detail.

A good taxonomy also is one in which "everything has a place and only one place".

Too deep is too deep: users have a more difficult time encoding, and consequently navigating, deep sites.

Too broad is too broad: conversely extremely broad sites (which may encourage satisficing - settling for a decision because there are no consequences and time does not permit further research) also present a challenge to efficient navigation.

Effective sub-grouping reduces perceived breadth: grouping navigation elements thematically improves performance for even the broadest structures.

Clear labels improve navigation accuracy: creating clear and distinct labels for navigation elements enhances performance.

You can create a "Polyhierarchy", allowing more than one navigational route to the same category heading. Typically this could be routes for different audiences as well as a primary navigation.

Do remember to think about cross-references:

Relationships from non-standard terms to standard terms
Relationships from narrower terms to broader terms
Relationships from one term to a related or equivalent term

Also do remember to takes into account different potential types of "browser" (i.e. Visitor); for example:

Hierarchical - those who browse by accessing the primary taxonomical path through the site
Supplemental - those who browse by accessing adjunct views of the site, e.g. via an A-Z index
Contextual - those who browse by seeking access to related content objects in the site: e.g. "see also" navigation

You can transform the Taxonomy into a Site Map.