Planning your site
Once you've done your research, it's time to think about organising content. You will probably want your site to have several pages and you will need to decide how content should be arranged on those pages. You're in a very similar situation to an architect building a house. Once you've found out what the owners want, before you call the builders in, you draw lots of sketches, work out all the problems and come up with a detailed plan. There are a lot of different ways of presenting the same idea. The more you think it through and discuss it, the more likely you are to find a really good way to communicate your idea.
Try asking yourself questions like these:
Why are people coming to my site?
Make up some characters; give them names and bring them to life inside your head or within your group. Imagine them coming to the site. What are they looking for? Where are they likely to go? Different people will want to see different things, so what's the best way of arranging things so everyone has a good experience?
How does the content fit together?
You should find that the way some parts of your site fit together is obvious. If you had a selection of interviews for example, it would make sense to put them all on one page or in the same section. Remember that the way you see content fitting together might be different to the way your visitors would see it. Go back to your imaginary characters; how would they expect the site to be organised?
What's important?
What will be the most common routes through the site? What areas are people going to want to see most? Make sure the key parts of your site are well signposted and easy to get to.
Sketching out your site
Write your page titles down on Post-it notes, stick them on the wall in a way that seems natural to you. Then peel them off and see if your friends come up with the same arrangement. If they do, great. If not, where's the confusion? Finding the right arrangement of Post-it notes will give you the basis for your site structure.
Now try sketching out your pages on pieces of paper. Where are you going to put the navigation? Sketch in where your content, page titles, links, forms and images could go. It doesn't need to be very tidy. The point is to do something quickly and easily, then make refinements where you can see problems. Persuade your friends or anyone who happens to be walking by to try them out.
By now you should have a good idea of your subject and a plan of how your site will fit together.
Links
Hotwired Information Architecture Tutorial:
http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/98/28/index1a.html
Amazon - look at how they've grouped their products:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/
