2025-01-06, 2025-01-08 Module 2: Taxonomy design methodologies
- Kidd, Denise
Approaches
Top down
business users
yield most intuitive, navigable taxonomy designs
The issues are that they don’t yield a complete design right at the outset, topics may get left out; second, if not clearly managed/facilitated, taxonomy design can reinforce bad behaviors
Start at highest level and break into secondary, tertiary
Blank slate is the best approach if using top down
Bottom up
Taking the content and indexing it to find similarities between content and then greater similarities; building a pyramid
Issues
content driven: you’ll end up with tax that’s all about the amount of content you have now. reinforces existing knowledge rather than processes. not necessarily bad, just keep in check
time consuming
Best when you have a tool helping you auto-categorize, but tools can’t evaluate value of content, they just go on the volume/weight
Hybrid
Start with small groups to workshop the first couple of levels then use the tool to match the content with topics and recommend additional subcategories.
Start with top down and then tag sample content to identify additional topics (like faking a bottom up design)
Off the shelf taxonomy
Only works if you have a standard set of products/information resources you want to align to other orgs (ISO codes)
For taxonomy for the business' mission, don’t buy an off the shelf taxonomy
Methodology
KIM - knowledge information management
Planning
Step 1: Business case
audience, mission of audience
true reason for designing taxonomy
what specifically will taxonomy do for the end users?
Step 2: Scoping
timeline, regulatory requirements
plot out as-is and end state (to-be), which is 2-3 years out.
people - availability, acceptance, understanding
technology - requirements vs capabilities
budget
Step 3: Knowledge gathering
communication, education, marketing
set user expectations, translate pain points into solutions in real time
create buzz around the project
market the results not the definitions
Identify tax and content starting points
key stakeholders and early adopters
existing tax and info sys
critical must-find content
Folksonomy - user-generated tag structure. Allows individuals to tag content in lieu of a formal metadata. Cannot replace taxonomy with folksonomy.
valuable in generating non-preferred terms
identifying theming and use governance to include it in the tagging structured as part of tax
validates a taxonomy
make sure it has a lesser weight rank in search than your taxonomy
Step 4: Taxonomy team
wide spectrum with diversity (function, hierarchy, tenure, geography)
identify those who ‘get it’ but also have influence in specific domains
should be an official and measurable job activity supported by management, should be ‘blessed’
configure the team around the project scope (same process as original scoping, just at a different level)
ensure the right people are the designers of the system
convene a working group of business users and publishers to drive design process
workshops to identify metadata fields and top-down tax design
enlist additional users for follow-up workshops, focus groups, testing
support content migration and tagging
should become a standing group during and beyond the effort
Taxonomy will change over time based on business needs, and governance is needed to maintain standardization while allowing the tax to grow and develop.
Step 5: Taxonomy workshops - repeatable that translates natural business thinking into tax and metadata design. Use throughout the project with different groups and at different areas of focus and level of detail.
business case
audience definition
verb identification
noun identification
metadata field prioritization
capture all the terms and testing proves out what the official blessed term should be
card sorts - filing content into prescribed categories. you want 65% agreement that X content belongs to Y categories. when you have a 50/50 split, both topics should potentially be merged (using ‘and’ or '&' is fine!)
Step 6: Taxonomy focus groups
spin-off groups - used to accomplish more specific design requirements
secondary/tertiary metadata fields that are less controversial
ID tertiary metadata fields/tax of values for specific sections of the core tax
spot testing/validating content against tax.
Step 7: User testing
occurs with multiple groups
tax team and focus groups
other content owners and stakeholders
end users
should be multi-directional
consistent tagging of tax onto content (card sorting)
consistent nav of tax to find content (find it)
not seeking perfection but rather seeking majority
Step 8: Content tagging/population
time/labor intensive at multiple levels
validates tax design - start with most critical content
migrate content but also cleanup
population strategies
manual upload of docs
auto-cat tools
‘paper’ migration followed by third-party tagging
consider long term sustainability when constructing filters and other population mechanisms
Sidebar: Understand your publishers
publishers determine the reasonable complexity of a tax/metadata strategy
acceptable amount of time per doc
# of metadata fields
complexity of the tax
Step 9: Maintenance and evolution - most of the work happens here!
establish clear governance
policies/procedures
roles/responsibility
comms, education, marketing
maintain tax team to guide future dev
continuously re-examine the tax
establish mechanisms to gather user feedback and respond to it in a timely manner
no such thing as a 100% perfect rollout - strifing for it will only delay project. using the right mechanisms, the team can respond to users feedback to bring the tax closer to 100% over time.
Design
Testing & Development