Tool / App for planning website structure & content

#1

I wonder if you guys use any tools/apps during the process of planning a website before you start working in RW?

I would like to pre-define things like:
overall page and directory structure (sitemap)
define meta data of each page (browser titele, meta description, social metas…)
define wording for navigation
define H1 headlines for each page
define layout with sections of content on a page (headline text, body text, images related…)
footer content
etc.

I would like to have the benefit of having all essential data of the entire site in just ONE document for the perfect overview, while at the same time being able to focus on the content of one specific page in detail.

I wonder which apps you consider to be helpful when it comes to plan/concept a website?

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#2

PP

Pen and paper is always good :wink:

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#3

how about trying something different from time to time :wink:

#4

Mindmap, there are loads of free mindmapping programmes out there. I’ve used mindmapping for professional workflows and project management, but I don’t usually need to get that complicated with website design. My rule is that a visitor should be no further than 2 mouse clicks away from any content, or at least that should take them to an overview of the topics within that specific content.

https://app.mindmapmaker.org/#m:new

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#5
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#6

I highly recommend iThoughts. If you are an educator/student the cost is $25, Regular price is $50.

Very nicely done. Much more powerful than free options. Better than some of the much more expensive options.

Works nicely with markdown. I actually write content (websites, documents) in iThoughts via Markdown. (Don’t worry, the text is embedded inside a node and does not ruin the look.). Then I export the whole document as markdown. But there are lots of other export options one can use.

More here:

#7

thank you all for your suggestions.
after playing around with the demo of iThoughts a bit: looks pretty promising!
… although I have to admit that 50$ is more than I intended to spend… but iThoughts goes beyond “just” wireframing and is definitely a good starting point for doing further research.

#8

Unless these wireframing systems are super fast, I don’ really see the point. Just wire frame in RW, then when you’ve done, you’re already got your project started.

I use RW to “wireframes” all the sites I do, whether they are to made in RW or not as it’s the quickest solution.

#9

Have a look at MindNode. It’s in Mac and iOS. It really love it when I needs to visually see the structure of large amounts of data

#10

I am not so much interested in wire framing (works very well with pen and paper or several tools that Mac OS offers for free) - I am more interested in overviewing / editing / arranging the contents of all pages of my website before the process of building all those pages with all those contents in RW.
The reason is that I find myself often building different variants of e.g. a particular section of a page because it turned out that my original vision wasn’t´t as convincing as I intended it to be. And it´s sometimes a pain to rearrange things in RW… I would like to avoid some of this trial and error regarding layout, structure, sorting, ordering etc.

My vision is, that I can decide from the information that already is contained within the planning tool (as a very simple example!) if a section on a page should be built as a 2-col layout or a 3-col layout…

#11

thank you for your suggestion, too.
…just found that as a competitor of iThoughts on macupdate.com - these two seem to be very similar… I will check out both since there are trial versions available

#12

Just offering a :+1: for iThoughts. Very easy to use, app isn’t burdened by ancillary capabilities, frequent updates by developer. Recommend it highly (great for planning full term classes and individual class activities if you’re a teacher, by the way).

#13

There are a ton of mind mapping tools out there. I believe that Xmind is free. I used to use that one years ago. I have tried many and prefer MindNode. There is also https://www.mindmeister.com (free plan available) but I prefer to have an app.

#14

I like the mindmap idea. A really simple and flexible such tool is Scapple from Literature and Latté and, since we are really talking about writing, that same company’s Scrivener is good for writing of any sort. Includes an outliner function. Both Scapple and Scriverner provide generous trial versions (30 separate daysof use). No connection, just a long-time satisfied customer.

#15

I played around with iThoughts and - although it is not the perfect solution for what I was aiming for - I already started to use it for other purposes. I will check Scapple, since it seems similar at first glance, but is far cheaper than iThoughts. :wink: Thanks for your suggestion @shorn

#16

side note: Just downloaded Scrivener. Seems like an easy to use but powerful tool for creating scripts and storing content-ideas – e.g. for a website! :slight_smile: maybe this combo is just what I am looking for “mind mapping PLUS content creating” the easy peavy way. I really appreciate that you brought in your suggestions!!

#17

Scrivener is the type of program that can do a lot, but you may not need to use all its features. I have been using it for years and there are still things I don’t bother with. It has a good tutorial that is worth working through. The site’s forum is also helpful.

#18

If you want to write with pen and paper try RocketBook.

#19

For those interested in the mind mapping thing: I did further research and found simplemind – which is half the price of thoughts. very nice app: https://simplemind.eu/support/new-features/mac/

Besides that iThoughts offers more export options (which I personally do not need) I can not see huge differences between these two apps regarding features and handling

#20

Adobe XD :+1:t3: