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Site Structure & Concept: Site Maps, Personas, Wireframes & more

Good research is usually followed by development of a site concept and structure. This involves defining your model users, developing scenarios, creating a site map, and finally defining the site with wireframes.
Web Design: Interaction Design vs Visual Design
Good web design is a two-phase process. Interaction Design and Visual Design should not be two competing approaches, but complementary processes. You should know what you want your site to do (interaction design) and then proceed with choosing your color palate, fonts, and overall look and feel (visual design.)
How to Create Wireframes for Your Web Site
This step-by-step on how to create web site wireframes shows you how to use them to design for better usability. Creating wireframes lets you quickly and easily explore usability design problems such as keeping your navigation consistent and developing good interaction techniques.
Strengths & Weaknesses of Wireframes
Wireframes are a great way of creating exploratory sketches of a web site for quickly exploring layout possibilities. From a perspective of web usability, wireframing your site gives you an opportunity to quickly develop and review ideas without being locked into a slower, often costly design and production process.
How Detailed Should You Make Your Wireframes?
Wireframes come in many forms and sizes, each of which fits a different need. What is most appropriate for your needs?
Use Cases FAQ
Use Cases are generally closely associated with personas. They describe specific sets of user actions.
Information Architecture
Information Architecture (IA) is the core conceptual structure of your site. The freely available chapter Introduction to Information Architecture from Information Architecture for the World Wide Web is a great starting point for learning about it. The IA Institute provides some more in depth resources resources for learning about IA as well as a library or articles.

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