Thread

Hi there,

I’m fairly new to EE and have decided to use it to develop a client’s website.  I’ve purchased both Mike Boyink’s “Building an EE Site” book and Ryan Ireland’s EE screencasts.  Both have been huge in helping understand EE’s inner-workings.

My question is related to properly designing an IA around Products and Services for my client’s website.

The client offers both products and services geared towards construction/renovations.  Based on the info provided, the following services have been identified:

1. Restoration Services
2. Residential construction services
3. Medical and Dental construction Services
4. Commercial construction services
5. Custom cabinets and furniture

And, for Products:

1. Flooring: laminate/ ceramic/ vinyl/ hard wood/ engineered.
2. Roofing: shingles/soffit and fascia/ eavestrough
3. Doors and trim / exterior and interior doors/
4. Kitchen cabinets
5. Windows
6. Stone veneer
7. Faucets/ sinks/ toilets bathroom
8. Tools and accessories

I’m trying to figure out if it’s best to used shared categories for the two weblogs.  I’m just not sure what those would be, or whether a different approach altogether would be better.

Any insight/direction would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Frank

Thanks again for the book purchase!

Do you have any sense for the sitemap/IA for the site, not even thinking about EE?

What I’d be looking for is—is the site meant to present visitors with a construction/renovation choice first, then group products and services accordingly?

Or -

Will they choose products then get a breakdown?

Thanks for writing such an awesome resource!

Essentially, the site will be broken down like this:

- Home
- About
- Testimonials
- Services
- Products
- Blog
- Contact

The services section is more or less a brochure-type section that will list the services the company offers (ie: construction/restoration services).  So I’m seeing this section’s target audience being people who are looking for construction/restoration/renovation services (home owners, retail, etc.)

The products section is geared more towards other contractors who can buy products/supplies from my client.  This section is geared more towards professional contractors, but can also be targeted to individuals who may not require full contracting services from my client, but may want to buy supplies/tools from them (ie: doing their own home reno, etc.).

What I was hoping to do (and this may not even make sense) is to tie the two sections together through shared categories.  The only thing is that I don’t think all categories will be shared.  Is it still possible to have _some_ categories shared between the two, and other categories specific to their section/weblog?

I hope this is clear enough… if not, let me know and I’ll try and break it down further.

Thanks for offering to help, Mike.  I really appreciate it!
Frank

So is the hope to show related services while in the products section, and vice versa?

If so, it’s not altogether too unlike the approach I took in the Small Business book.

You’d need to assign the same category group to both weblogs, but whether or not a given category has posts in both weblogs is up to you.  If there was no related product for the currently viewed service that area would just be blank.

When I first started working on the site map, that’s initially what came to mind: chapters 3, 13 and 14.  I just wasn’t sure what the categories might be seeing as how there are differences between products and services.  ie: restoration services (service) vs. windows (product).

Would it make sense to have the following custom category called “Product_Services” containing the following categories:

- Restoration
- Residential Construction
- Medical & Dental
- Commercial Construction
- Custom Services
- Flooring
- Roofing
- Doors & Trim
- Kitchen
- Windows
- Stone
- Bathroom
- Tools & Accessories

Or am I not looking at this properly?

By the way, you’ve piqued my interest in your first reply:

What I’d be looking for is—is the site meant to present visitors with a construction/renovation choice first, then group products and services accordingly?

That sounds interesting… How _would_ you go about doing something like that?

Hmm…

I was thinking you’d essentially have two categories: Construction and Renovation.  And that list that you posted would be the page content, assigned to one of those two categories.

Unless each item in that list has enough content to justify being it’s own category then having all them in one shared category group would make sense.

If you went with the two category approach then a home page split between then would be pretty easy - it’d just be a category list leading to a template in category mode.  You’d create the backend structures the same way, it would just be a different navigation path.

Oh really?  Hmmm… now I’m even more confused. 😉

I was basing it on the categories used in the book.  Under the Products_Services category group, the following categories were used:

- Accessories
- Drivetrain
- Interior

That’s why I was assuming the following categories for a Product_Service category group:

- Restoration
- Residential Construction
- Medical & Dental
- Commercial Construction
- Custom Services
- Flooring
- Roofing
- Doors & Trim
- Kitchen
- Windows
- Stone
- Bathroom
- Tools & Accessories

I’m not seeing how you came up with the Construction and Renovation categories.  Would it be possible to elaborate on that? 

Thanks again, Mike!
Frank

When I hear things like “The client offers both products and services geared towards construction/renovations”—I immediately start thinking of those as categories..😉

Make sure you are using categories to group information—do you have enough content in something like “windows” to require a category?

And keep in mind..I’m just playing armchair developer here..😉  You’ll have more intimate knowledge of the client, their customers,  and their content.

Hey Mike,

I definitely see where you’re coming from with respect to having Construction and Renovation as categories.  Would you say that you tend to make decisions on what Categories a site should have based on content?  Meaning, if there isn’t enough content to fill a category such as “windows”, to simply bulk into a larger over-arching category?

I just don’t want to go down the wrong path (if that’s even possible, seeing as how there are more ways than one to architect an EE site)... but having someone with as much experience as yourself guide me down the right path is always better.

Hey Mike,

I definitely see where you’re coming from with respect to having Construction and Renovation as categories.  Would you say that you tend to make decisions on what Categories a site should have based on content?  Meaning, if there isn’t enough content to fill a category such as “windows”, to simply bulk into a larger over-arching category?

It’s not always a straight formula - it’s a process that takes into account:

- Current content (is there enough that it needs to be grouped)
- Desired content (is more expected)
- Expected users (who are they, what terms will resonate with them - will it work better if they self-identify into a given sub-set)
- Usability (does adding a category add unnecessary clicks with no benefit)
- Design (if I ungroup content will there be too many links for the navigation design to support)
- Business Model (how is the client communicating these products & services elsewhere, if I make significant changes will other marketing materials need to be updated)

I just don’t want to go down the wrong path (if that’s even possible, seeing as how there are more ways than one to architect an EE site)... but having someone with as much experience as yourself guide me down the right path is always better.

I try (but I don’t always succeed) to not let EE’s abilities influence the site IA.  The site IA should be independent of the technology used to achieve it.