Overview: Online Architecture
Probably the most common reason organisations contact me is to get help with their internal and external information architecture.
I usually find, however, that they first need to find a clear consensus on their communication strategy, content strategy and online strategy. Once that's done, I deliver a document which both you and your developers can understand, including some or all of the following:
- highly detailed sitemaps: internal intranets, external websites, knowledgebases, and the information flows between them
- mission statements for principal site chapters, features and content types
- business requirements for any revised or new features
- wireframes, allowing both you and your developers to envision how the result will look.
The aim is to deliver something detailed enough for professional developers and designers to give you a concrete quote, but not so technical that noone else understands what they're building.
I can then work with them to deliver it, or assemble a team and manage the site build for you.
Check out some of my firsts and best practices, or just get in touch.
More services: start with Communication strategy.
Relevant resources
circanews.com
Read the same documents our reporters gathered. Watch the video out-takes of an interview, or take a 360-degree virtual reality adventure. Test your knowledge about complex issues with a quiz. Sound off about issues, interacting through polls and emoticons or by leaving a comment. We’ll give you the tools and access to become involved, either in d…
lifehacker.com
I was feeling less informed every day, despite being inundated with options for information... our points are sorted by "importance", which is to say the most important on top, least on bottom, one other option was to sort by the timeline in which points were added... our writers are adding individual bits of information in discrete text boxes and…
www.niemanlab.org
Circa is indeed returning, but it won’t be the Circa its users remember.... “an independent digital news site aimed at the new generation,” building on the “intellectual property and technology of Circa News.”
medium.com
Where I think Circa took a step forward ... the idea that we could ... take ANY story and add a structured element to it — even if the only structure was “this item read, this item unread.”.. I do think there are a few concepts that Circa created and executed upon that were truly “inventions”... The concept of atomizing news ... allowing a r…
www.pbs.org
"Fold is a platform for telling stories. It makes it simple to add multimedia background information or create context... the main story reads as all stories do, straight down vertically. But contextual information is placed to the side of the main story, on a horizontal line. That information can be video, photos, or links to other sites..."…
www.thejournalismbiz.com
Good overview of Circa's approach: "A new model for online journalism is emerging, focusing on the atomization of news stories into “bite-sized chunks” of information aimed at mobile audiences."
adage.com
Surprise surprise... "Circa is developing two types of ads: magazine-style full-screen banners, like Flipboard, and sponsored posts... which look and feel like editorial, created by a separate staff.... One future revenue possibility would be licensing access to Circa's article data to other publishers," - News App Circa Looks to Na…