Getting Started with User-Centered Taxonomy Design
Joseph A. Busch, Senior Principal
Project Performance Corporation
 1,300-person (325 in US) multidisciplinary team of scientific and
technical experts







Taxonomy and metadata design experts.
Systems engineers and architects.
Policy and regulatory specialists.
Project management professionals.
Certified information technology experts.
Security professionals.
Behavioral change and knowledge transfer
specialists.
Commercial and non-governmental clients
3
Government clients
Substance Abuse Mental Health
Services Administration
Who we are: Joseph Busch
• Over 25 years in the business of organized information.
–
–
–
–
–
–
Senior Principal, PPC
Founder, Taxonomy Strategies
Director, Solutions Architecture, Interwoven
VP, Infoware, Metacode Technologies
Program Manager, Getty Foundation
Manager, Pricewaterhouse
• Metadata and taxonomies community leadership.
– President, American Society for Information Science & Technology
– Director, Dublin Core Metadata Initiative
– Founder, Networked Knowledge Organization Systems/Services
What we do
What we do
Organize Stuff
Who are you?
What sectors do you work in?
• Your Role
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Content Manager
Editor
Information Architect
Usability Expert
Librarian
Records Manager
Knowledge Engineer
Ontologist
Chief Information Officer
Communications
Administration
• Sector
–
–
–
–
Education
Government
Research
Other
How do you organize your sock drawer?
Like this?
Or, like this?
Today’s agenda
9:00-9:30
30 min Introduction
9:30-9:45
15 min Roles, sectors & interests exercise
9:45-10:30
45 min Defining taxonomy
10:30-10:45
15 min Coffee Break
10:45-11:00
15 min Noun sorting exercise
11:00-12:00
60 min Justification for business taxonomy
12:00-1:00
60 min Lunch
1:00-1:15
15 min Governance exercise
1:15-2:15
60 min Planning a taxonomy project
2:15-2:45
30 min Coffee break
2:45-3:45
60 min How to get started
4:45-4:45
60 min Case study exercise
4:45-5:00
15 min Q&A, Closing
Agenda
•
•
•
•
•
•
Defining business taxonomy
Justification for a business taxonomy
Planning a taxonomy project
How to get started
Case study
Closing
Taxonomy and metadata definitions
• Primary tools to provide
structure to unstructured
information.
• Depending on system design
and use, may be front-end or
back-end functionality.
• Taxonomy (categorization) is
often actualized by applying
metadata to documents.
• Enable findability.
Metadata
Taxonomy and metadata definitions
• Metadata
– Data about data.
• Taxonomy
– The classification of organisms in an ordered system that indicates
natural relationships.
– The science, laws, or principles of classification; systematics.
– Division into ordered groups, categories, or hierarchies.
Examples of taxonomy used to populate
metadata fields
Metadata Values (As Taxonomy)
Audience
Metadata
Title
Author
Department
Audience
Topic
Internal
 Executives
 Managers
External
 Suppliers
 Customers
 Partners
Topics
Employee Services
 Compensation
 Retirement
 Insurance
 Further Education
Finance & Budget
Products & Services
Support Services
 Infrastructure
 Supplies
Explaining traditional taxonomies
• Biological/Medical/Library
Science Taxonomies
– An overall organizational
system with many branches
or sub-branches that
organizes their world of
information.
– Extremely rigid approach
• Purely subject-oriented.
• Consistent and methodical.
• Every item has one and
only one correct
categorization.
• “Instantive” Categorization
Approach
– Defined by “is a”
relationships— each child
category is an instance of
the parent category.
– “Pure” taxonomic approach.
Kingdom  Animalia
Phylum  Chordata
Class
 Reptilia
Order
 Squamata
Family
 Colubridae
Genus
 Pituophis
Species  Catenifer
Defining the business taxonomy
• Categorization structure designed by and for business users
– Business users as primary taggers/content contributors
– Business users (or their constituents) as primary consumers
• Used for both (or either) primary or secondary categorization:
– Primary: Navigation, Management
– Secondary: Search, Tagging
“ When we talk about a taxonomy, we are not only talking about a
website navigation scheme. Websites change frequently, we are
looking at a more durable way to deal with content so that different
navigation schemes can be used over time.”
– R. Daniel “Taxonomy FAQs”
Characteristics of business taxonomies
• Tend to be less rigid and
constrained.
• Influenced by usability concerns
– Minimize number of “clicks”
• Often content-driven
– Ensure balanced content
distribution.
• Allow flexibility, redundancy
– Items may be organized into
multiple categories.
– May support multiple
taxonomies for disparate
audiences.
• May use one or more different
categorization approaches.
Traditional v. business taxonomy: Side-by-side
comparison
Traditional Taxonomy
•
•
•
•
Back-end Visibility
Integration & Classification
Absolute Granularity
Ultimate Classification
Business Taxonomy
• Front-end
Visibility/Navigation
Structure
• Navigation &
Integration/Classification
• Increased Usability
• Simplicity
Example of business taxonomy
Business taxonomy problem: How to pick from >
5,000 faucets?
Refine search by:
• Category
• Price
• Brand
• Color/Finish
• # Handles
• Series Name
• Water Filter?
• Faucet Spray
• Handle Shape
• Soap Dispenser?
How business taxonomy translates into frontend interface
Metadata Field: Size
Metadata Field: Type
Taxonomy Values:
Athletic Inspired
Boots
Loafers and Slip-ons
Oxfords and More
Sandals
Taxonomy Values:
4.5
5.5
6
6.5
7
8
…
Metadata Field: Color
Taxonomy Values:
Black
Blue
Brown
Green
Grey
Ivory
…
Metadata Field: Brand
Taxonomy Values:
Antonio Maurizi
Bacco Bucci
Ben Sherman
Bruno Magli
…
How business taxonomy translates into frontend interface…for YOUR ORGANIZATION
Metadata Field: Topic
Metadata Field: Locale
Taxonomy Values:
Manufacturing
Benefits
Infrastructure
Quality
Safety
…
Taxonomy Values:
North America
Europe
Asia
South America
…
Metadata Field:
Document Type
Taxonomy Values:
Forms
Policies
Procedures
Reports
News
…
?
Metadata Field:
Department
Taxonomy Values:
HR
Sales and Marketing
Communications
Shipping
…
Noun exercise: Most popular flickr tags
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/
Noun exercise: Facet grouping
Sort flickr categories
into 5 or fewer groups.
Then label each group.
Agenda
•
•
•
•
•
•
Defining business taxonomy
Justification for a business taxonomy
Planning a taxonomy project
How to get started
Case study
Closing
Justification for business taxonomy
• Easier information management.
• Flexibility to respond to changing needs.
• Foundation for findability and usability.
Effectiveness of business taxonomies
• Categorize in multiple,
independent, categories.
• Allow combinations of
categories to narrow the choice
of items.
• 4 independent categories of 10
nodes each have the same
discriminatory power as one
hierarchy of 10,000 nodes (104)
– Easier to maintain
– Easier to reusue existing
material
– Can be easier to navigate, if
software supports it
Main
Ingredients
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Chocolate
Dairy
Fruits
Grains
Meat &
Seafood
Nuts
Olives
Pasta
Spices &
Seasonings
Vegetables
Meal Type
•
•
•
•
•
•
Breakfast
Brunch
Lunch
Supper
Dinner
Snack
Cooking
Methods
Cuisines
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
African
American
Asian
Caribbean
Continental
Eclectic/
Fusion/
International
Jewish
Latin American
Mediterranean
Middle Eastern
Vegetarian
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Advanced
Bake
Broil
Fry
Grill
Marinade
Microwave
No Cooking
Poach
Quick
Roast
Sauté
Slow
Cooking
• Steam
• Stir-fry
42 values to maintain (10+6+11+15)
9900 combinations (10x6x11x15)
Easier management – Greater consistency:
Overall enterprise taxonomy goals for the EPA
• Provide a single methodology for categorizing information across
offices, programs, and regions.
• Reduce the time it takes to successfully target and find crossProgram/Region information
– Enable and enforce content linking across the agency
• Build common agency-wide terminology resources
– Eliminate multiple, ambiguous taxonomies
– Eliminate multiple glossaries, abbreviations and acronyms
• Group things differently depending on the context
– e.g., ground water with drinking water, or ground water with water
quality
• Get the right content to the right people in the right format at
the right time.
Flexibility to respond to changing needs
Steve
• Respond to innovation
– New product or service launch
• Respond to disruption
– The boss wants something done now
• Target / personalize content
– RSS feeds
– Tailored portals
• Assemble new site quickly
– Unfunded mandates
Michael
Foundation for findability and usability
• For a product catalog, e.g., HomeDepot.com
– Conversion rate increases
• 20% increase. Petersen
– Lift in average order size.
• 20% increase. Petersen
• For knowledge workers, e.g., call center support staff
– Time saved
• 36% faster than search. Chen & Dumais.
• For knowledge workers, e.g., analysts
– Increase in productivity
• 25% productivity increase from not re-creating content . Taylor.
• Estimated productivity loss exceeded $10M per year—about $500 per
employee per year. Nielsen.
Common categorization schemes – Strive for
topical taxonomy
Hardest
Easiest
Method
Definition
Examples
Facet-based
Information categorized
into multiple taxonomies
or “stackonomies” based
on unique but pervasive
characteristics including
topic, function, etc.
Wines by region
France > Alsace
Wines by type
White > Chardonnay
Wines by price
Subjectoriented
Information categorized
by subject or topic.
 Instantive - each child
category is an instance of
the parent category
 Partitive - each child
category is a part of the
parent category
water pollution, soil
pollution,
air pollution…
Functional
Information categorized
by the process to which it
relates
employment, staffing,
training
Organizational
Information categorized
by corporate departments
or business entities.
Human Resources,
Marketing, Accounting,
Research…
Document
Type
Information categorized
by the type of document
presentations,
expense reports, press
releases …
Taxonomy governance self-assessment
Basic
1. Is there a process in place to examine search
query logs? Yes No
2. Is there an organization-wide metadata
standard, such as the “Dublin Core”, for use
by search tools? Yes No
Intermediate
1. Is there an ongoing data cleansing
procedure to look for any redundant,
obsolete or trivial content (ROT)? Yes
No
If there is a process, describe it briefly.
2. Does the search engine index more than 4
repositories around the organization?
3. Are system features and metadata fields
added based on cost/benefit analysis, or
because they are easy to do with the current
applications and tools? Cost/Benefit
Easy
4. Are applications and tools acquired after
requirements have been analyzed, or are
major purchases sometimes made to use up
year-end money?
Requirements
Year-End
5. Are there hiring and training practices for
metadata and taxonomy positions? Yes
No
If there is training, describe it briefly.
Advanced
1. Are there established qualitative and
quantitative measures of metadata quality?
Yes No
If there are measures, describe them briefly.
2. Can the CEO explain the return on
investment (ROI) for content management,
search and metadata? Yes No
Agenda
•
•
•
•
•
•
Defining business taxonomy
Justification for a business taxonomy
Planning a taxonomy project
How to get started
Case study
Closing
Top down v. bottom up approach – We’re
focusing on top down
Top down approach
•
•
•
•
•
Keep it broad and shallow
– 6-12 top-level categories.
– 2-3 levels deep.
Focus mainly on the primary, top-level
concepts
– Keep it simple (elegant)
Be inspired by schemes that already
exist and are being used
– Industry standards.
– Local practices.
When appropriate, use universally
applicable divisions
– Business activities.
Focus on the names of people, places,
organizations and things—Save the true
topics for last.
Bottom up approach
•
•
•
•
Essentially boiling the ocean.
Identify frequently occurring noun
phrases in text—thousands and
thousands of them.
Identify every possible category, and
then try to sort them into meaningful
groups.
Obsess over the naming of each
taxonomy node.
Primary risks and challenges
•
•
•
•
•
Lack of understanding
Complexity
Compliance
Resistance to change
Delay and avoidance
Lack of understanding
• Why are we building this taxonomy
– What is the business problem that we are trying to solve
• Who are the end users
– Are they being involved in building the taxonomy
– Observe what end users do and how they are do it
• Review query logs and web analytics
• Sales conversion and order size statistics
• Business not consumer (or end user) perspective
– Org chart thinking
– Combining apples with oranges
• Confusing Document types and Department names with Topics
Complexity
• Perception that complexity validates your worth (knowledge)
• The tendency is to make the taxonomy more complex than it
needs to be
– Every possible category is described instead of just the ones needed
today.
– Adding categories, but not removing any.
– Focus on categories that relate to what the most important content is
about, or the most common user tasks.
Compliance
• Compliance is a key driver for taxonomy projects
– eDiscovery – records management.
– SOX / FDIC – transparency in corporate decision-making.
– HIPPA – medical records security (and communication)
• Avoiding penalties for breaching regulations
–
–
–
–
EPA-regulated industries.
FDA-regulated products (food and drugs)
USDA-approved labels.
CMS quality improvements.
• Following required procedures.
– Insurance claims.
– Telecommunication service rates.
– Customer support and complaints.
Resistance to change
Lack of:
Awareness
Reinforcement
Desire
Ability
Knowledge
Delay and avoidance
! Not invented here – We’ve been working on our taxonomy for the
past 5 years.
\ Inertia – We’ve always done it this way.
$ Unfunded mandate – We don’t have the resources to do this.
X Insubordination – I don’t want to do this.
What do you need to get started?
• Understand your Audience.
• Understand your Publishers/
Content Managers.
• Understand your Technology
platform.
• Understand your Content.
– How much content.
– How it is tagged.
• Understand the Scope of the
project.
Taxonomy design projects
seldom do (and never should)
exist in a vacuum. Unless the
project managers and designers
recognize and adapt to the
project constraints, the project
is doomed to failure or
obscurity.
Understand your audience
• End users drive the language and complexity of the structure.
– Who are they?
– Who is the lowest common denominator?
– Define the “spectrum of experience:
New Employee
Tenured Employee
Technophobe
Technophile
Young
Native Speaker
Old
Foreign Language
Understand your publishers
• Publisher determine the reasonable complexity of a
taxonomy/metadata strategy:
– Acceptable amount of time per document
– Number of metadata fields
– Complexity of taxonomy
Business Users
Part-time (Volunteer)
Few Publishers
Diverse Publisher
Information Professional
Dedicated Position
Many Publishers
Homogenous Publishers
Understand your platform: CM, DM, RM, Portal,
Enterprise
• Taxonomy design seldom works outside the context of a
business mission, typically tied to a technology:
Web
Content Management
Portal
Document Management
Records Management
Looser
Less Complex
Tighter
More Complex
Understand your content: How much?
• More content typically equals more time to re-tag with new
taxonomy and metadata design
• Explore iterative approaches to re-tagging
• Take advantage of effort to clean out old or obsolete content
• Consider alternatives:
– Auto-categorization tools
– Tagging services
Understand your content: How is it tagged?
• Typically, content does not have “salvageable” metadata
– Metadata mappings often don’t work.
– But working with existing metadata can provide quick wins.
• Be willing to reduce fields to improve quality.
• Use business rules to automate content tagging.
– Tag top-level content first
• Tag landing pages for major sections
• Lower-level pages inherit tags from top-level pages
– If content originated in this department, then tag it with pre-defined
values.
Understand your limitations
• Many, if not most taxonomy
project fit within the context
of a large project and are
driven by artificial
limitations:
– Schedule
– Budget
– Personnel
Relax: you’re not alone. Few
taxonomy design project are
perfectly resources and funded.
The most important thing is to
START the process. Recognize
you can make due with given
resources as long as you begin
the process correctly and build
from there.
Define your use cases
• Understand how/why you will be using taxonomy and metadata.
• Define who your content managers are in order to understand
their capabilities:
– Willingness to manually enter fields.
– Ability to properly tag content.
• Define your audience to understand their needs:
– Sorting needs.
• Communicate benefits to all users
Key components to a successful taxonomy
project: Project best practices
• Incremental, extensible process that identifies and enables
users, and engages stakeholders.
• Keep your audience in mind.
• Strive for subject-based categorization.
• Be consistent.
• Control depth and breadth.
• Make a long-term investment.
• A means to an end, and not the end in itself .
• Not perfect, but it does the job it is supposed to do—such as
improving search and navigation.
• Improved over time, and maintained.
Common roles and responsibilities: Committees
• Governance Board – Review overall strategy of taxonomy and
define the type of appropriate content.
• Taxonomy Team – Approve requests for new folders and ensure
the value of content placement and metadata.
• Content Managers – Approve and edit content.
• Content Owners – Publish content and apply metadata.
Group
Publish
Content
Edit/Move
Content
Approve
Content
Request
Content or
Folders
●
Taxonomy Team
Content Managers
●
Content Owners
●
●
Create/Edit
Folders
●
●
●
●
Iterative design plan
Identify
business
case
Planning
Maintain
& evolve
Discovery
Form
taxonomy
team
Tag
content
Testing &
review
Build
taxonomy
Form
focus
group
Communications, education and marketing
• Give users the ability to learn about the taxonomy by a
range of means:
– One-on-one meetings
– Live presentations/ Workshops
– Documentation
– Animated Tutorials
– Context Sensitive Help
– White Papers
• Create two-way communications and prove it means
something
– Document decisions and archive all input.
– Make all feedback available to end users.
– Provide means of communication via the system.
• Market the value of the taxonomy and effective metadata
use – mandates will not be sufficient.
Define governance
• Apply the core governance principles to your taxonomy and
metadata strategy:
– Roles and Responsibilities –
• Managers
• Reviewers
– Policies –
• For naming
• Required Fields
– Procedures –
• For reviewing and approving metadata placement
• For acting on poor metadata application
End user focus
• Recognize that users may think about and look for information in
different ways
• Understand your business practices and use the most
appropriate categorization method(s)
• Consider multiple taxonomies for disparate audiences
• Use familiar vocabulary and organizational schemas to ensure a
logical browsing experience.
Leverage existing metrics: Passive and active
• Active (Survey/Interviews)
– Perform online and in-person interviews
– Provide feedback mechanisms on every screen
– Conduct pre- and post-rollout surveys
• Passive (Usage Monitoring)
– Identify components that are not being used in order to address
improvements
– Alert administrators to empty folders, too many documents, or a
proliferation of other components
– Identify most popular components in order to learn from them
– Identify the terms users are searching for and the folders in which they
are browsing to provide similar content
– Identify inactive users to address their issues
Agenda
•
•
•
•
•
•
Defining business taxonomy
Justification for a business taxonomy
Planning a taxonomy project
How to get started
Case study
Closing
The workshop concept
• A working session that includes
– Problem-solving, and
– Hands-on activities
To involve participants in a accomplishing practical task.
Recommended workshop configuration:
FDA Taxonomy Committee Selection Criteria
• Represent internal business functional areas
– IT (CIO, Web Operations, Systems Administration, Application Development,
etc.)
– Communications and Public Affairs.
– Administration (HR, Financial Management, etc.)
• Represent program areas
– Biologics, Devices, Radiological Health, Drugs, Food Safety, Nutrition,
Veterinary Medicine and Toxicology.
– Regional offices, Regulatory Affairs and Office of the Commissioner.
• Have information management responsibility related to any or many
phases of the content lifecycle
– Planning  Creation  Management  Publication  Archiving.
• Be of a manageable size – a minimum of 6 and maximum of 12 members.
Primary goals
• Surface business value of taxonomy.
• Involve taxonomy stakeholders and end users.
• Discover high-level taxonomy that can be modified and
extended over time.
Sample agenda
9:00-10:00 Introductions and project overview.
10:00-11:15 Exercise 1: Information seeking use case exercise and
discussion.
11:15-11:30 Break
11:30-12:45 Exercise 2: Identify and agree on intranet audiences.
12:45-1:30 Lunch
1:30-2:45 Exercise 3: identify and group tasks (what you do and
what other people want to do on the intranet)
2:45-3:00 Break
3:45-4:30 Exercise 4: Identify and group topics.
4:30-5:00 Summarize and discuss next steps.
Exercise 1: Define value statement
EPA Success measures – Usage metrics
• Reduce FOIA requests/costs.
• Expand use to include different types of people (new audiences)
• Improve customer satisfaction survey results
– Score higher on American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI)
government-wide survey.
• Improve OMB Performance and Accountability Reports (PARS)
– Show cause and effect especially between regulation & measured
outcome, e.g, arsenic removed from water and health.
– Provide more visibility for research pages.
• Reduce cost per unique user (UU)
– Increase Webstats (page hits)
• Increase number of successful website searches.
Exercise 2: Define audience types and
differentiators
Audiences
• “I should get the official stance of
the organization on an issue …
not a bunch of items dated from
around the same time.”
• Our 1.3 million realtor members
are not technically savvy.
• [On current website, it's] “hard
for the user to really get a grasp
of what's going on.”
– e.g., Joe Realtor trying to
find information about
diversity.
• Aggregation (2d level pages)
mostly reflect the org chart.
Association Executives
Policy Makers
Consumers
Lawyers & Legal Counsel
Media
NAR Members
NAR Staff
NAR Leadership
Differentiators
Geographic Areas
Property Types
Business Activities
Exercise 2: Define audience types and
differentiators
Differentiators
• Audience Situation: Audience
situation(s) to whom the
conference is relevant.
• Perspective: Overall tone of
the content – emotional,
clinical or practical.
• Clinical Characteristics:
Specific cancer type(s) or
other clinical characteristics
discussed during the
conference, or relevant to
the conference.
Audiences
Multiple Audiences
Patients
Family & Friends
Press & Public
Clinicians & Providers
Worried Well
Differentiators
Situation
Perspective
Clinical Characteristics
Exercise 3: Define verbs – What people want to
do – NASA Taxonomy use case domains
• Project Manager
– “I’d like to see all documents at a certain level in the WBS.” E.g., All planning
docs relating to project management.
• Scientist
– “I’d like to see what types of data were returned on earlier missions using a
particular instrument to help with the Science Definition Goals of my new
proposal.”
• Cognizant Engineer
– “I’d like to see all problem failure reports on a sub-system I designed and flew
5 years ago so I can incorporate the lessons learned into my current mission.”
• Project Information Management Engineer
– “I’d like to see the status of all Phase B documents that I need to prep for an
upcoming CDR gate review so I know we’re ready.”
• Operations Engineer
– “The space craft is experiencing some behavior anomalies. I’d like to look at all
quality control records and test results relating to the specific sub-system
that’s producing errors, so we can figure out how to fix the system and
continue the mission.”
Exercise 4: Define nouns/topics
Absolute Auctions • ADA • Advocacy • Agency Disclosure • Americans with Disabilities Act •
Appraisal • Auctions • Benefits • Benefits • Blackberry • Branding • Brokerage Management •
Brownfields • Business Activity • Business Issues • Business Lifecycle • Buying • Closing •
Commercial Finance • Commercial Green Buildings • Commercial Real estate • Commercial
Research • Compliance • Computer Software • Computers • Consumer Surveys • Conventional
Residential Lending • Customer Follow-Up • Development Impact Fees • Digital Cameras • Digital
Photography • Diversity • Downzoning • Economic Forecasts • Economic Indicators • Environment •
Environmental Issues • Errors & Omissions Insurance • Ethics • Fair Housing • Farm Land •
Governance • Government Affairs • Green Roofs • Ground Leases • Ground Leases • Growth
Management • Health • Hiring • History • Hotel / Motel Properties • Housing Statistics • Human
Resources • Human Resources • Inclusionary Zoning • Industry Surveys • Insurance • Insurance
Availability • International Real Estate • International Research • Issues • Keeping Customers • Land
• Lead-Based Paint • Leadership • Legal • Legislative Affairs • Liability • License Laws • Listing •
Lobbying • Low-Income Housing Tax Credits • Luxury Homes • Marketing a Brokerage •
Membership • Military Base Closings • Minimum Bid Auctions • Mold & Health Issues • Multi-Family
Properties • NAR Membership • Negotiating • Networking Computers • New Homes • Office
Properties • Offices • Online Auctions • PDA • Personal Marketing • Property Marketing • Property
Types • Property Values • Prospecting • Real Estate Transfer Taxes • Recruitment • Remote Access
• Representation • Research & Analysis • Reserve Auctions • Residential Real Estate • Resorts •
Retail Properties • Retaining Customers • Retaining Top Personnel • Retention • Risk Management •
Sales Meetings • Second Homes • Selling • Smart Growth • Smart Growth • Stigmatized Homes •
Tax Issues • Taxes • Technology • Underground Storage Tanks • Water Rights • Website
Development • Wireless Access • Workplace Trends • Zoning • Zoning Laws • Zoning Ordinances
Find commonalities
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Advocacy & Lobby
–
Business Issues • Commercial Finance • Conventional Residential Lending • Diversity •
Environmental Issues • Fair Housing • License Laws • Smart Growth • Tax Issues
Brokerage Management
–
Human Resources & Benefits • Leadership • Marketing a Brokerage • Offices & Facilities •
Recruitment & Hiring • Retaining Top Personnel • Risk Management • Sales Meetings • Workplace
Trends
Business Activity & Lifecycle
–
Appraisal & Property Values • Auctions • Buying • Representation • Selling
Legal & Liability Topics
–
Agency Disclosure • Compliance • Health & Environment • Insurance • Taxes • Zoning & Land
NAR & Membership
–
Branding • Ethics • Governance • History • Membership
Property Types
–
Commercial • International • Land • Residential • Resorts & Second Homes
Research & Analysis
–
Commercial Research • Consumer Surveys • Economic Indicators & Forecasts • Housing Statistics •
Industry Surveys • International Research
Technology
–
Website Development • Computer & Networking Hardware • Computer Software • Cameras &
Photography • Wireless & Remote Access
Identify non-topical terms for additional
metadata fields
• Content types
– Listserv • Magazine • News Service Report • Newsletter • Research
Publication • Statistics
• Organizations
– Affiliates • Association Executives • Board • Business Specialties • Committees
• Communications Division • Executive Offices • Government Affairs Division •
Legal Affairs Division • Marketing & Business Development Division • Research
Division
• Geographic Areas
– Countries • NAR Regions • SMSAs • States
• Audiences
– Association Executives • Policy Makers • Consumers • Lawyers & Legal Staff •
Media • NAR Members • NAR Staff • NAR Leaders
Agenda
•
•
•
•
•
•
Defining business taxonomy
Justification for a business taxonomy
Planning a taxonomy project
How to get started
Case study
Closing
Overall project objectives
• Establish and review high-level requirements for SAMHSA
clearinghouses product tagging, web presentation and search.
• Define appropriate metadata structure and controlled
vocabularies to:
– Provide unified access to NCADI and NMHIC product catalogs.
– Consider application to other SAMHSA web content .
– Align scheme with other relevant HHS and private resources.
• Develop taxonomy editorial rules, usage guide and change
management recommendations.
• Prepare task-based scripts for testing usability of the taxonomy
to effectively search for and navigate unified product catalog.
SAMHSA Health Information Network home
page (http://www.samhsa.gov/shin/moreaboutshin.aspx)
National Clearinghouse for Alcohol and Drug
Information - NCADI Home Page
(http://ncadi.samhsa.gov/)
National Mental Health Information Center –
NMHIC Home Page
(http://mentalhealth.samhsa.gov/)
SAMHSA Office of Applied Studies
(http://www.oas.samhsa.gov/)
National Institute of Mental Health – NIMH:
Mental Health Disorders
(http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publication
s/the-numbers-count-mental-disorders-inamerica.shtml)
ICD 10 Chapter V
(http://www.who.int/classifications/apps/icd/icd10online/)
• Mental and behavioural disorders (F00-F99 )
F00-F09
F10-F19
F20-F29
F30-F39
F40-F48
F50-F59
F60-F69
F70-F79
F80-F89
F90-F98
F99
Organic, including symptomatic, mental disorders
Mental and behavioural disorders due to psychoactive substance use
Schizophrenia, schizotypal and delusional disorders
Mood (affective) disorders
Neurotic, stress-related and somatoform disorders
Behavioural syndromes associated with physiological disturbances and
physical factors
Disorders of adult personality and behaviour
Mental retardation
Disorders of psychological development
Behavioural and emotional disorders with onset usually occurring in
childhood and adolescence
Unspecified mental disorder
High-level taxonomy: Facets & query log terms
Sort terms from the
SAMHSA query
logs into buckets,
and then label
them.
High-level taxonomy: User groups, questions
and tasks
User Groups
Questions or Tasks
Based on the SAMHSA Program Review and Needs Sensing reports executive
summaries, list 5 user groups who are likely to use the SAMHSA clearinghouses.
Then list the questions they are likely to want to answer, or tasks that they want
to accomplish.
Agenda
•
•
•
•
•
•
Defining business taxonomy
Justification for a business taxonomy
Planning a taxonomy project
How to get started
Case study
Closing
Rinse and repeat
The taxonomy should be built in an iterative fashion, with more
content and broader review for each iteration.
Review of total methodology
• Know the ROI case – what is the benefit you want and what can
you afford in the way of tagging, software, and other expenses.
• Know the content to be categorized and the people who will use
it. Have an idea of the UI they will use to access the content.
• Get the team together.
• Go through the process, in an iterative manner.
The 9 steps to successful taxonomy design
Identify
business
case
Planning
Maintain
& evolve
Discovery
Form
taxonomy
team
Tag
content
Testing &
review
Build
taxonomy
Form
focus
group
¿Questions?
Joseph A. Busch, + 415-377-7912, jbusch@ppc.com
http://www.ppc.com