PowerMapper – Site Map Diagram Tool

I’m working on some process designs for a client here in Shanghai, At home, I used Visio to do the diagramming, but decided to try out PowerMapper, a diagramming tool that the technical writing team use here.

PowerMapper – Site Mapping Tool

PowerMapper is an sitemap creation tool for information architects, usability analysts and web developers. Once you’ve built a map you can customize it by choosing from one of the built-in map styles. You can also print maps out to help document the information architecture of a site.

Note: these example styles will open in a new window.

| Skyscraper Map Style |

This map displays a tower for each page on the site. The tall tower in the middle is the home page, and the smallest towers are furthest from the home page.

| Electrum Map Style |

This map displays thumbnails of each web page of the top 3 levels of the site arranged on a 2D grid.

| Isometric Map Style |

This map displays thumbnails of each web page of the top 3 levels of the site arranged on a 3D grid.

| Page Cloud Map Style |

This map displays thumbnails of each web page arranged in clusters.

| 3D Buttons Map Style |

This map displays a graphical button for each page on the site. You customize the map with your own icons.

| Tree View Map Style |

This map displays an expanding DHTML table of contents.

| Table of Contents Map Style |

This map displays a static table of contents.

| Electrum 2.0 Map Style |

This map displays thumbnails of each web page of all levels of the site arranged on a 2D grid.

| Thumb Tree Map Style |

Thumb Tree

This map displays thumbnails of each web page of all levels of the site arranged like an organizational chart.

| Table Map Style |

This text-only map displays page titles in a table grid.

| Yeeha Map Style |

This text-only map displays pages titles in a portal-style directory.

Benefits

Create Site Maps Cost-Effectively

Creating a site map manually takes many days of effort, even for medium size sites. PowerMapper creates site maps automatically with a single click. Outline costs to manually create a site map are:

3 minutes per page to create and layout a box for each page in a drawing package then copy-and-paste the page title or url
Total Effort: 50 hours to create a map of a 1,000 page site
Total Cost: $2,500 at $50 per hour

PowerMapper can build a better site map in under 5 minutes for a small fraction of the cost.

Note: link opens in a new window

Share Maps with Others

Share site maps with colleagues and clients when re-designing or auditing a site. Export maps using standard formats like HTML, PNG, CSV and XML.

Search Engine Visibility

Export maps in Google XML sitemap format to improve the visibility of your pages to search engines, and make sure more of your pages are appear in search engine results pages.

Use Maps in Other Applications

Maps can be copied and pasted into applications like Word and PowerPoint for sales presentations and proposals. Map data can also be exported to Excel or Google sitemap format.