Creating a sitemap for Ongoing Worlds website

I created a sitemap of all the pages I’ll need inside the Ongoingworlds PBEM website. I used a piece of free software called MindMap which was very easy to use.

I’ve listed the main pages, obviously there will be more than this, as each form page will need a conversion page to say “thankyou” or to highlight what needs to be done next.

I’ve numbered each page for my own reference, this relates to the mockups I’ve done. Some in Balsamiq like I’ve posted here before, but some just exist as a very rough sketch in my notebook. So far everything is in the layout-only phase, and doesn’t reflect the actual web design, I’m hoping the actual design will just slot easily over the top and not affect the layout of items I’m placing on the pages.

I took the reference of a web design company as I had heard a lot about their excellent designs and the results I found were amazing. You can also contact them by using the following link if you require professionals who can help you get the perfect web design for your company
– https://www.sandcastle-web.com/services/website-design/.

Sitemap of the Ongoing Worlds website

I find that working like this gives me a focus and a goal. I could go on endlessly tweaking this website and never making it live. But at least seeing all these pages is like a list of things I need to get done. Once I’m happy with these pages I’ll make the site live, and think about adding any additional functionality as a phase 2 thing.

Website Mockups for Ongoingworlds.com

I’ve created and attached some wireframe images (using Balsamiq) that show what I want and where, so that the designer knows what to design. It looks basic at the moment (as it’s a wireframe!)

Homepage

Mock-up of the homepage

The first (and one I’m least happy with) is the Homepage. A lot of designers start with the homepage first, mainly because clients always want to see that first. I actually think the homepage is the least important design, as it’s the one you’ll be looking at the least. Maybe your first visit to the site it exists to promote the site and encourage you to go further. But after that, it exists as nothing more than a landing page with a username and password box to login.

Anyway I’ve tried to show what the site is for without too much explanation, hoping that people will work it out from seeing examples of other games. Something I hate about lots of RPG or PbeM sites is that they don’t really tell you what’s what on the homepage, you have to go into a separate section to see the game posts.

I want to show on the homepage the most recently updated games, so that people don’t think it’s one of those RPG sites that died in 1998 and has been static ever since.

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Why I'm creating the OngoingWorlds website

Ongoing Worlds is a project that’s born out of my love of PBeM games. I’ve been playing online text-based role-playing games since about 1998, when I first got the Internet at home. I loved the total freedom of using my character to inhabit this total virtual world that only existed in peoples imaginations.

I’ve already discussed in this article about how I’ve ran PbEM games before using Yahoo Groups, which does the job reasonably well, although is limited and to be honest starting to look a bit tired and oh so old fashioned.

Yahoo Groups is limited in that it’s trying to suit everyone, and therefore doesn’t provide tools that would really make life easier for the GM of a PbEM game. Of course I could bitch and moan about this all day, but it’s not their fault obviously because they can’t create all the functionality that everyone in the world wants. I chose to use what they created, so it’s my problem not theirs.

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