CONTENT BRAINSTORMING
What is the content and how will it be organized?
DEVELOP A CONTENT LIST

Make a list containing all the aspects of your content that could possibly be used in your web-site. The key is to temporarily suspend your critical faculty and get as many ideas as possible down on paper. Looking ahead to the next step, organinizing the content, it may be helpful to write each content item on a separate index card.

If straight listing does not come easily, a technique known as mind-mapping may be helpful (example). This technique is especially useful for the development of hypertext environments such as the WWW. It also has the advantage that content is ordered (in at least a preliminary fashion) as it is listed rather than afterwards.

For example: in designing a site for CMU, one might include the following information:
+ list majors + departments + research projects
+ profile faculty + research facilities
+ post job openings + campus life
+ admission info + college sports
+ recreational facilities + libraries
+ computer facilities + list of colleges
+ student web pages + campus map
+ visitor information + financial aid
+ registration + course descriptions
+ undergrad/grad studies + alumni info
+ what's new + spring carnival
+ campus publications + history of CMU
+ Andrew Carnegie + contact info
+ interdisciplinary programs + human resources
+ child care offerings + help!
+ distance learning + adult education
+ dining halls + campus accomodations
+ campus police + career center
+ campus stores + campus jobs
+ strategic planning + the president
+ computer recycling + and so on...
ORGANIZE THE CONTENT

Once you have created a brainstorming list of sufficient length, scan the list for "natural" categories of information (theme, topic, size, location, chronology, narrative sequence). Think of the priority of information. Think about what your end-user might want to know, want to do, or expect.

After devising several categories, you should now order the information such that individual items are placed in the appropriate category or categories. In the process of organizing and fitting the information it will likely be necessary to re-shape the original set of categories. At this point do not concern yourself with the relationships between the parts; that will be the concern of the next step, flow-charting.

For example: one might organize the information above in the following manner:
colleges research
+ departments + projects
+ majors + individual grants
+ faculty + universitry libraries
+ staff + research centers
admission services
+ precollege + computer services
+ undergraduate + residential life
+ graduate + dining services
what's new about cmu
+ uc + cmu today
+ purnell center + history of cmu
+ new policies, etc. + Andrew Carnegie
administration community outreach
+ human resources + high school programs
+ the President + adult education
+ the HUB + computer recycling
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