A sitemap is a visual artefact that shows all the pages of an app and how they are linked. They are useful to illustrate information architecture, page/screen hierarchy and relationships of a website or app’s content. They can also serve as a list of pages/screens that need designing and building to complete the product.
For this part of my product, the Public Portal, they also serve as a combined user flow, as each dotted box is the user flow for an individual task. For tidiness and simplicity, I have only illustrated a single questionnaire flow. Whereas, in reality, this flow will be repeated 5 times with up to 80 questions in a questionnaire.
I decided to use Miro to create my site map, as this allowed me to colour-code each separate section of the map. It also makes it easy to show the links between the home screen and each of the individual user flows, making it easier to follow how a user would navigate through the app.
This site map, however, does not illustrate one key aspect of my design, the fact that the user is taken on an overall journey through each of the required steps to allow the AI model to build a detailed enough picture of the user’s traits to make a recommendation of whether a formal assessment is required. From the user’s perspective, the only flow available after completing onboarding is the questionnaire flow, which they would complete up to five times before the relative’s questionnaire flow would be available. This is to allow users who show very few traits and a low likelihood of having autism to decide not to go any further, rather than force them to complete the whole journey only to be told that at the very end. However, no user will be blocked from completing the journey if they want to do so. This layout also allows the opportunity to swap different flows around if the AI model reaches a maturity where it can define that documentation would be valuable earlier in the process, then the fact that each flow is distinct from the others would make this quite easy to achieve. Although in the initial phase I expect the order to be fixed, if I can speak to a professional in autism diagnosis, I will ask them whether they feel a fixed or personalised approach would be best.
Below is an image of my Site Map:
Having a complete site map is a very useful artefact as I start the hi-fi mocks and prototype design of my app. It allows me to see the required screens and how they relate to each other and the overall user journey. It also allows me to assess whether each screen is required and I have not added screens unnecessarily, adding to a user’s cognitive load.