Production Planning, Continued

With all the copy organized and converted, I can start figuring out the directory structure of the site, or how its folders will be organized. Determining the folder structure of a site can be one of the most difficult tasks of a web project. The decisions you make now can greatly affect how you interact with the site later. Your goal is to create a folder structure that will allow you to access files quickly, without having to spend a lot of time digging through subdirectories or scrolling through hopelessly long file lists. Also, since more than one person may be working on the project, a well designed structure will allow you to comfortably hand off entire sections of the site to another team member without worrying about confusion or overwriting of files.

HTML Files
I always start with where I'm going to store my HTML files. If at all possible, I only want one page at the root level (or top level) of the site: the home page. All the other HTML files will be stored in their own folders. For example, let's say I'm working on a site with four main sections: Products, Services, Company Background, and Contact Information. I'll create a folder for each section so that once I start writing my HTML, I'll know exactly how each page relates to other pages on the site. You may be tempted to create subdirectories inside each main section folder, but I don't recommend it. If you keep the structure simple, you'll have a consistent path for all images and links.

Image Files
Deciding on the best place to store your images can be tricky. Many people like to set up image folders inside each main HTML folder. I prefer to set up one image folder off the root that contains all the images on the site. This can get unwieldy on large sites, but the advantage is that all images will have the same path (/images/imagename.gif). This comes in handy when you need to search for and replace an image that appears on several pages. It's consistent and easy to remember, since all of your images are in a central folder.

Applications
HTML and images will make up the bulk of the files on your site, but you may have other types of media that you use, such as a web application. Applications can be confusing if you don't take the time to learn how they work. For instance, most of the applications on the sites that I've worked on serve pages from a template directory, which may be located inside another folder. Since the programmers decide the folder structure for applications, I have to make sure that the way they set things up doesn't conflict with my plans. Pathing within applications has to be consistent with that used on the site as a whole, or you could end up with broken images and links. Make sure you take the time to communicate with the person responsible for the application early on. That way, you can both avoid having to fix things later.

view a printable version of this article