Requirements (again)

People who want to adopt a dog

• What dogs are available?
• Can I visit the dogs?
• What does it cost to adopt a dog?
• Will I be allowed to adopt a dog?

People with a dog that needs to be adopted

• Can I leave my dog with Adopt-a-Dog?
• Will Adopt-a-Dog look after my dog?
• Will my dog have a good home?

People looking for training, or veterinary services

• What services are available?
• What do they cost?
• When and where can I get services?

People who want to donate money

• How will my money be used?
• How do I donate?
• Are donations tax deductible?

Potential volunteers

• What jobs are available?
• What hours would I work?
• Is there training?

Adopt-a-Dog management

• How is content on the site updated?
• How much time will it take to keep the site updated?
• Where will the site be hosted?
• What will hosting cost?

Making a page hierarchy

So, what should we do?

Ray

You know, just looking at that requirements list, it seems like the pages are in categories already.

Adela

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing, Ray. Maybe pages for:

• Adoption
• Giving up your dog
• Services
  • Training
  • Veterinary
• Donating
• Volunteering

Good teamwork. Adela made the list, but gave some credit to Ray.

Georgina

That looks good to me. Different from WebHostFace. WebHostFace organized their site around services they offer. Looks like we’ll organize Adopt-a-Dog around tasks people want to do.

Adela

Huh. You’re right. Good thinking.

Good teamwork. Adela compliments Georgina on noticing something she hadn’t.

Ray

A question. We’ve got:

• …
• Giving up your dog
• Services
  • Training
  • Veterinary
• …

We could bring training and veterinary up to the top level, and get rid of Services:

• …
• Giving up your dog
• Training
• Veterinary
• … ​ Look at the menu, and you know what services Adopt-a-Dog offers, without having to drill down through the Services link.

What do you think, Adela?

Good teamwork. Ray suggests a change to Adela’s list. By asking Adela about the change, he recognizes her contribution.

Adela

OK, good idea. Let’s do that.

People often resist changes to “their” ideas, interpreting suggestions as criticisms. Adela doesn’t fall into that trap.

Marcus

That adds another link to the top level menu, though. We had five:

• Adoption
• Giving up your dog
• Services
• Donating
• Volunteering

Now we would have six:

• Adoption
• Giving up your dog
• Training
• Veterinary
• Donating
• Volunteering

Hey, Ruben, how many links is too many?

Ruben

Good question! Seven or eight is a good rule of thumb.

Sometimes you use more links. Here’s a menu from Amazon:

There are many departments. Amazon chose to have many links; actually, it’s not that hard to scan the list in this case. Notice the light grey lines as well. They break the list up into three groups, like the green dividers WebHostFace used.

Adela

If it’s OK with everyone, let’s go with:

• Adoption
• Giving up your dog
• Training
• Veterinary
• Donating
• Volunteering

Anyone got anything to add?

Good teamwork. Adela summarizes what’s been decided, but gives other people a chance to speak.

Marcus

What if someone wants to ask a question, about donations or something? Would they know what to do?

Georgina

Hey, a contact form! Many sites have them.

Sites have an About Us, too. Like WebHostFace.

Should we have one?

Adela

That’s a good idea. It would have the address and a map, stuff that would have to be on the other pages anyway, so people know where to see the dogs, get training, and all the other stuff. The other pages could link to About Us.

About Us could also talk about how Adopt-a-Dog was created, things like that.

So here’s the list:

• Adoption
• Giving up your dog
• Training
• Veterinary
• Donating
• Volunteering
• About us
• Contact

Georgina

I like it!

Marcus

Me too!

Ray

Yes!

Ruben

Good job, everyone!

But you’re not done yet. You’ve got a list of the top level pages. Are there pages under those? Remember the WebHostFace model:

Also, rough out descriptions of each page, if you think you need to.

Marcus

Ack! How do we do this?

Adela

Hmm. Remember that most of the pages come from the requirements list. How about we take the requirements for each page, and see what jumps out? We can go page by page.

Tasks that look big sometimes aren’t, if you break them into pieces.

Georgina

Yeah, I see what you mean. The first one was:

People who want to adopt a dog

• What dogs are available?
• Can I visit the dogs?
• What does it cost to adopt a dog?
• Will I be allowed to adopt a dog?

If there are a lot of dogs, that would be a really big page. Especially if there are photos. How about we break that out into a separate page? That would give us:

• Adoption
  • What dogs are available?
• Giving up your dog
• Training
• Veterinary
• Donating
• Volunteering
• About us
• Contact

Ray

Nice! The question “What does it cost to adopt a dog?” If working out the cost is complicated, maybe with a lot of different options, we might want to break that out, too.

Marcus

Let’s take a look at what Adopt-a-Dog sent us… You’re right, the cost depends on whether you want an id chip, extra vaccinations, other things. Let’s make a different page.

• Adoption
  • What dogs are available?
  • What does it cost to adopt a dog?
• Giving up your dog
• Training
• Veterinary
• Donating
• Volunteering
• About us
• Contact

Everyone OK with the adoption part?

(Nods all around.)

Good teamwork. Check before finalizing a decision.

Adela

The next one is:

People with a dog that needs to be adopted

• Can I leave my dog with Adopt-a-Dog?
• Will Adopt-a-Dog look after my dog?
• Will my dog have a good home?

Oo, idea! “Will Adopt-a-Dog look after my dog?” is about the kennels and feeding and stuff. That could be under About Us, with a link to it. “Will my dog have a good home?” could link to the page we just did, about adoption.

• Adoption
  • What dogs are available?
  • What does it cost to adopt a dog?
• Giving up your dog
• Training
• Veterinary
• Donating
• Volunteering
• About us
  • The kennel
• Contact

I’ll make a note about the “Giving up your dog” page:

Giving up your dog

Process for surrendering your dog. Link to kennels. Link to adoption.

The model

Here’s what they came up with.

Pages

• Adoption
  • What dogs are available?
  • Will I be able to adopt?
  • What does it cost to adopt a dog?
• Giving up your dog
• Training
  • Beginner obedience training
  • Intermediate obedience training
  • Advanced obedience training
• Veterinary
• Donating
• Volunteering
• About us
  • Location
  • The kennel
• Contact

Page notes

They made some more notes.

Giving up your dog

Process for surrendering your dog. Link to kennels. Link to adoption.

Training

Subpages for each of the classes. They are linked from the training page. Also links to the location page on the training page. Could there be a signup for classes?

Volunteering

List of positions they’re looking to fill. Could there be a form for this? People could say what position they’re interested in.

About Us

Mission, funding, execs. Separate pages for location and the kennel.

Location

Address, map, directions.

Kennel

Linked from several other pages. The most important part of their facility?

Contact

Address, phone, and email, as well as a contact form.

That’s the page hierarchy model for Adopt-a-Dog.

Summary

The team made a page hierarchy model, based on requirements. The model has two parts:

• Page list
• Page notes

What now?

We need one more model: look-and-feel.