If all goes well, your menu (or "information architecture") might look a bit like this when you're done:
Homepage
- About Us
- Mission
- Vision
- History
- Courses
- Undergraduate
- Graduate
- Research
- News
- Events
- Contact Us
Notice how, on this sample site, pathfinding is pretty simple. A Canadian grad student looking for information about courses has a clear path to his goal.
It's worth mentioning, too, that this is just a blueprint: a rough map of every page you plan to publish, and how they're organized in relation to each other. But like all our best-laid plans, this can (and should) shift and grow organically as needs change and new audiences arise.
Throughout that growth though, even as this blueprint goes more and more out of date over time, try to keep in mind the big-picture themes you used to build the site in the first place, and stick to them. This may help prevent what many McGill sites experience: a clear cut and fresh start, followed by months or years of unchecked growth in all directions. It isn't enough to build a site well; you've got to maintain it well too!
