Structuring The Unstructured in the Enterprise

IMPLEMENTING PROVEN
TECHNIQUES FOR SEARCH AND
RETRIEVAL

Taxonomies: bringing structure to
unstructured information

© Kate Simpson 12 September 2006

AGENDA

Introductions

Setting the Scene

Taxonomies: Identify
- identifying information for structuring

Taxonomies: Create
- two examples: Local & Global

Taxonomies: Apply
- search, browse & classifying


INTRODUCTIONS

David Fitch, Head of KM Systems &
Projects

Kate Simpson, Information Architect


INTRODUCTIONS

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer
 leading international law firm
 over 2,400 lawyers in 28 offices around the world
 comprehensive legal service to national and multinational
corporations, financial institutions and governments

Knowledge Management
 widely regarded as among the leaders in KM
 dating from the early 1980s
 KM Review Group 2003: formulating the firm’s next
generation KM strategy


THE INFORMATION PROBLEM : 2003

Valuable know-how on shelves and desks around the
firm: precedents, standard forms, current awareness,
guidance notes, opinions and client guides

2003: KM Review Group

“Project Athena”: Online Know-How System


STRUCTURING THE UNSTRUCTURED

IDENTIFY
WHAT of your unstructured information could or should be structured
to make it both more findable and re-usable?

Content Inventory – take stock

Purpose, structure and use

Strategy Two Approaches:

One Pot for All Content… Multiple Pots of Content…
Ideal Approach Pragmatic Approach



IDENTIFY

HOW should that information be structured: metadata & common
vocabularies/“taxonomies”?

Lesson Learnt # 1: Make the metadata schema, including the
taxonomies, flexible and scalable. Recognise that as new information
types or applications are included additions, changes and deletions will
need to be considered



CREATE
Create and agree the taxonomies within the schema

Two Examples:

Athena’s Legal Classification : One that is currently local to a
particular system where we can offer some lessons we’ve learnt

Firmwide Taxonomies : Work that is going on to create a central
registry of terms for sharing firmwide in our systems and content where
we can offer some tips but not yet the lessons



CREATE : LOCAL

Lesson Learnt # 2: Set expectations, ensure buy-in, accept differences
& maintain good governance

Local Example: Athena’s Legal Classification
 describing know-how by its legal concepts and legal processes
 separate project to co-ordinate agreement across practice groups &
offices
 firmwide vs. local jurisdiction-specific terms



CREATE : LOCAL

Lesson Learnt # 3: Baby steps are required for familiarity and adoption

 using familiar terms that already exist and applying them online (even
if some of those terms are not exactly user-friendly in an online space)
is a small price to pay if it helps get that buy-in and adoption



CREATE : LOCAL

Lesson Learnt # 4: You won’t necessarily get the taxonomy right until
people start using it online – the need for “use in context” should not be
underestimated

 make sure there’s a test environment or stage of the process where
users can see and use the taxonomy with the content – it will deliver
understanding (and a flurry of change requests!) faster than any
“please read & comment” e-mails or meetings



CREATE : LOCAL

Lesson Learnt # 5: If you create a taxonomy or metadata scheme with
a single system, user interface or type of information in mind it will be
more difficult to integrate and apply it “as is” to other applications and
information types later on



CREATE : GLOBAL
Create and agree a central and integrated registry of terms

Tip # 1: To enable your multiple pots to appear to users as a single pot
you will need a central and integrated resource of terms where parts of
it can feed different systems, different drop-downs and navigation bars,
and be applied to content for search



Without this single integrated central resource, which captures a
common vocabulary that people, systems and content can all use across
the firm, the risks for inconsistency and duplication are increased

  
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 
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14/28


CREATE : GLOBAL

Tip # 2: This central resource extends the taxonomy concept to the nth degree:
taking the attributes and relationships (some automatic and some manual) that
any term has to create a model or “bubble” of terms in the centre of the
organisation



CREATE : GLOBAL


Tip # 3: By creating the context (using attributes and relationships)
around the terms we use, our information, systems and people can
become smarter



APPLY
Applying the taxonomies (or “bubble of terms”) in both search and browse
better enables users to find the right information at the right time and in
the manner they need it

Tip # 4: Understanding how people look for information and applying
this knowledge to the systems and user interfaces we design and create
will improve the user experience of searching and retrieving
information…


INFORMATION SEEKING METHODS

1. Users tend to use keyword searching to retrieve the:
• Things you know you know, and
• Things you know you don’t know

2. Users tend to browse an information space to retrieve the:
• Things you don’t know you know (ie. that which you’ve forgotten), and
• Things you don’t know you don’t know

3. A final information seeking behaviour is to ask another user/expert:
• As a last resort after trying a search or after browsing, or
• When the user is pushed for time


INFORMATION SEEKING BEHAVIOUR

It's rarely as simple as:

MAGIC! User receives answer
User asks a question

It's more likely to be:
Reformulate
Query Query
Search System

Information Formulate Scan
Navigate
Need Query Results Success
Browse System

Examine
Documents
Ask A Person Failure



APPLY : SEARCH
Leveraging taxonomies (or the “bubble of terms”) in the search engine

Tip # 5: In searching, taxonomies help users widen or narrow their
search and encourage serendipitous learning



APPLY : BROWSE
Applying taxonomies (or the “bubble of terms”) in a user interface

Tip # 6: In browsing a user interface, taxonomies help lead users to the
right information, for example through “facets” by providing multiple paths
to the same content; allowing users to “slice-and-dice” the content in as
many ways as they need…

21/28


APPLY : BROWSE

A very simplified example:

Smith, A
Legal Classification
Baker, B
Tax
Jones, C

Author Arbitration

Company Law

Agreement
Article Guidance Note

Document Type



APPLY : BROWSE



APPLY : CLASSIFYING
Develop a taxonomy further and the system can suggest terms for
indexing or fully auto-categorising your content

Tip # 7: By creating a full thesaurus with non-preferred and related terms,
the system can take content without any of your common vocabulary
terms featured and classify it with the correct term(s)



SUMMARY

By applying metadata and taxonomies to some
of your unstructured information

(ie. by structuring your unstructured information)

and leveraging them at both the system level
and on the user interface, you can improve the
search and retrieval experience for your users



Q&A

kate.simpson@freshfields.com


Structuring The Unstructured in the Enterprise

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