Palantir.net's Guide to Digital Governance: Organization

A website’s organization is one of the most important factors in determining how effective and useful the site is for its visitors. Sites that are well-organized, in a manner that visitors intuitively understand, will be more effective and useful than those which aren’t. Therefore, it is important to define for your institution who will have the authority and responsibility to determine your website’s organization, and how they will make those decisions.

Here are some questions to consider with regard to main websites and subsites within the main site.

Main Website

• Who determines the overall organizational hierarchy of the main website?
• Who determines the top-level menu options? How are those decided?
• Who determines the subsequent levels of navigation, order, labeling, etc.? How are those established?
• Who determines other navigational structures, such as utility menus, topic-based menus, etc.?
• Are there site-wide taxonomies to be maintained? Who determines and edits those?
• What role does usage data, analytics, and user-testing play in those decisions?
• Are there limits to the size, quantity, or depth of navigation?
• Are there any site-wide standards for how navigation and sub-navigation are displayed?
• Is there a process for addressing concerns or proposed changes to the site’s organization?
• Who has the ability to make changes to the website’s overall structure?
• Is there a review or approval process that needs to be followed?

Subsites

• Who determines the organizations of sub-sites within the larger website?
• Are there any guidelines or services for website owners who must create their own site organization?
• Are there limits to the size, quantity, or depth of navigation?
• Are there any site-wide standards for how navigation and sub-navigation are displayed?
• Are there any site-wide standards for where navigation and sub-navigation are displayed on sub-site pages?
• Are there rules for the labeling of navigation?
• Are there sub-site specific taxonomies? How are those determined and edited? Must they conform to any site-wide standards or rules?

These questions cover only the definition of responsibility surrounding website organization, which presumes that you have good information architecture in place already. For more information on creating good, test-driven information architecture, Optimal Workshop has both advice and tools for conducting your own card sorts (OptimalSort) and menu “tree” tests (TreeJack). We use these tools regularly in our work.