You need to know who your target audience is. A target audience is a group of people that have something in common, and it greatly influences many design aspects.
Think about the type of people you want to engage. Make notes about things like age, family status, computer experience and interests or hobbies.
Write a general description of your user.
The target audience is important because it helps to answer a bunch of design questions you’re going to have.
Write all the content bits and pieces out on little pieces of paper. Then, categorize the pieces. This exercise will give you a logical global navigation (and subnavigation if you have lots of content).
There’s no one way to organize content. You need to have a feel for what your content is, and then categorize pieces together. Don’t forget, it’s easier to rearrange pieces of paper than electronic data.
This process doesn’t just help the organization of content, it also helps you begin to think about production resources you will need and a time plan.
If you’ve worked through the content section, you’ll know that Navigation relies quite heavily on the content. Organizing content will reveal logical global and sub navigation. What comes first? Create a hierarchy for your content.
The site map shows exactly how many navigational items you’ll need as well as the hierarchy of the pages. The creation of a site map will also help you eliminate irrelevant content and know what you need to produce. It’s a good idea to take your time with this because without it, it will quickly become confusing where a particular piece of content “lives”. A simple and clear navigation structure is important so that your users don’t get confused or frustrated.