Taxonomy in action
Card sorting
Essentially it's just a simplified form of affinity diagramming. The names for potential content areas or groupings are written on cards, and given to potential users of the site, who then sort the cards into a structure that works for them. This technique can certainly be very useful, but is no substitute for considered decisions based upon a wide variety of research sources, diagrammed solutions, customer personas and use-cases, etc.
Site maps
A sitemap is a graphical, tree-structure representation of the hierarchical organisation of a site or service.
It's usually the last kind of diagramming an information architect does on a project, building upon all the work that has gone before. It's at this stage that taxonomy and wireframes can begin to hook up. I like to ensure that all pages on a sitemap are identified by a wireframe template type, a descriptive name, and a number reflecting its position in the site hierarchy.
Dynamic pages - even though their content is volatile - can easily be represented by page template types as easily as static pages. But what a site map doesn't give you is user journeys or allowable routes from area to area: to represent those you need process flows.
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