Background
In 2007 Ford introduced a new product, Ford SYNC™. It is a Microsoft embedded computer that connects to external devices (phones, media players) and the vehicle's internal ODB bus. It provides a visual, web and a vocal UI to interact with the vehicle and the customer's devices.
I was the UX lead at Razorfish for the first three versions of the product. Besides directing the experience for the marketing and owner website, I coordinated the UI work at Ford, Call Me (3rd party vendor for the vocal UI) and Inrix (3rd party vendor for the traffic and directions data and UI).
At one point versions 1,2 and 3 of the product where all being worked on. This site map was created to help manage the interdependencies between the vendors and the versions of the product and ensure the user experience stayed seamless as they travelled between different sections of the web UI that were being designed and developed by different people.
In 2007 Ford introduced a new product, Ford SYNC™. It is a Microsoft embedded computer that connects to external devices (phones, media players) and the vehicle's internal ODB bus. It provides a visual, web and a vocal UI to interact with the vehicle and the customer's devices.
I was the UX lead at Razorfish for the first three versions of the product. Besides directing the experience for the marketing and owner website, I coordinated the UI work at Ford, Call Me (3rd party vendor for the vocal UI) and Inrix (3rd party vendor for the traffic and directions data and UI).
At one point versions 1,2 and 3 of the product where all being worked on. This site map was created to help manage the interdependencies between the vendors and the versions of the product and ensure the user experience stayed seamless as they travelled between different sections of the web UI that were being designed and developed by different people.
Each page in the site map has a fair bit of metadata associated with it.
Process
The site map was programmatically generated from an outline. This provided an expedient way to keep the content updated without the effort of major design changes to the site map.
The outline was done in OmniOutliner, and the site map was constructed in Adobe InDesign. As the site map was being built, it applescript would pull in screenshots, comps or wireframes for each page. The site map also served as a quick way to see progress on the project.
I still use this system to manage large projects and perform site audits.
The site map was programmatically generated from an outline. This provided an expedient way to keep the content updated without the effort of major design changes to the site map.
The outline was done in OmniOutliner, and the site map was constructed in Adobe InDesign. As the site map was being built, it applescript would pull in screenshots, comps or wireframes for each page. The site map also served as a quick way to see progress on the project.
I still use this system to manage large projects and perform site audits.
A section of the outline used to create the site map
