Describing the scope of your website

[jojo11]

I am being tasked with describing our website. Sort of like describing the world.

Does anyone have any good site or reference of how to describe this?

THey are looking for things like how many pages we have (which may be misleading since we use basically a landing.aspx, thumb.aspx and product.aspx which accounts for thousands of products. So number of pages would be misleading to the obvious business goal of deciding how many people are needed to support it.

It is a 3 million dollar site for a popular toy company and contains about 40 sections that are brand sections, as well as several sections that are content based with things like parental advice.

I really don't know where to start.

Any help thanks in advance.

-------------------------------------------
Ummm, we have a bit of a problem here....

 

[damber]

What exactly does this group want the information for ? Are they going to re-develop the site, manage the IT infrastructure, maintain the code base, operate the back-end features, or even providing technical support, sales support and so on....

This will help us give you a relevant answer, because different people will quantify your solution using different metrics based on their perspective.



A smile is worth a thousand kind words. So smile, it's easy!

 

[traingamer]

Recommended reading: Information Architecture: Blueprints for the Web by Christina Wodtke, New Riders - chapter 9.

There are a number of ways to do this, all of them time-intensive, but necessary.
Use the tools you have available or are comfortable with; group things together as much as possible. Your 40 sections probably have a great deal of functional overlap even though they are branded individually.

Good luck.

Greg
"Personally, I am always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught." - Winston Churchill

 

[jojo11]

The website director has to present the "description" to the president of the company. They are looking to find out whey our site is only 3 million while another side of the company is spending 18 million.

-------------------------------------------
Ummm, we have a bit of a problem here....

 

[Tarwn]

Send him one word: "skill"

Then send him a request for a raise, since your saving 15m compared to allowing the other side of the company manage the website.