The document discusses taxonomy and metadata design for content management. It defines taxonomy and metadata, and explains how taxonomies can provide structure to unstructured information and enable findability. It discusses different types of taxonomies including traditional vs. business taxonomies. The document outlines best practices for taxonomy design such as defining use cases, audience, and governance as well as controlling depth and breadth. It proposes a workshop concept to develop taxonomies through identifying topics, verbs, nouns, and creating a starter taxonomy.

1. Sara James & Rachel Sondag Successful Content Management through Taxonomy and Metadata Design

3. Definitions

4. Justification

5. Categorization Schemes

6. Development Approaches

7. Risks and Challenges

8. Design Best Practices

10. Depending on system design and use, may be front-end or back-end functionality

11. Taxonomy (categorization) is often actualized by applying metadata to documents

13. Definitions Metadata Title Author Department Audience Topic

14. How business taxonomy translates into front-end interface

15. How business taxonomy translates into front-end interface…for YOUR BUSINESS ?

17. Defined by “is a” relationships - each child category is aninstance of the parent category

18. “Pure” taxonomic approach

19. Biological/Medical/Library Sciences Taxonomies

20. An overall organizational system with many branches or sub-branches that organizes their world of information

21. Extremely rigid approach

22. Purely subject-oriented

23. Consistent and methodical

25. Influenced by usability concerns

26. Minimize number of “clicks”

27. Often content-driven

28. Ensure balanced content distribution

29. Allow flexibility, redundancy

30. Items may be organized into multiple categories

31. May support multiple taxonomies for disparate audiences

33. Back-end visibility

34. Used for integration and classification

35. Business Taxonomies are typically front end “folder” structures

36. Front-end accessibility

38. An overall organizational system with many branches or sub-branches that attempt to organize their world of information

39. Each book or plant falls into one specific category

40. Taxonomy on the web or with a portal

41. Document-driven, some redundancy

42. Minimize empty folders

43. Flatter, simpler, more navigable

45. Absolute granularity

46. Ultimate classification

47. What you gain

48. Usability

49. Findability

51. Pull together disparately located content

52. Allows users to discover and learn

53. Search tools alone are inadequate

56. Analyze content collections using automated textual analysis tools

57. Reveal major and minor topics of information; build taxonomy based on the relationship of these topics

59. Identify overall ontology and major categories of information

60. Subdivide categories as necessary to build taxonomy

61. Individual-driven; may entrench obsolete or arbitrary categoriesHealth Education Finance HR News Finance

62. Risks and Challenges

64. Managers, Designers, Architects

65. Content Publishers

67. Too deep and too wide

68. Too much jargon

69. Too many fields

70. Too many pick options

71. Too much variation

73. Even the “best” content contributors typically won’t exceed a certain effort threshold

75. Organizational to Topical

76. Secure access to more Open access

77. Content owners will fear losing control of their content

80. Define who your content managers are in order to understand their capabilities:

81. Willingness to manually enter fields

82. Ability to properly tag content

83. Define your audience to understand their needs:

84. Sorting needs

86. Understand your business practices and use the most appropriate categorization method(s)

87. Consider multiple taxonomies for disparate audiences

89. Who are they?

90. Who is the lowest common denominator?

91. Define the “spectrum of experience”:New Employee Tenured Employee Technophobe Technophile Older Younger Foreign Language Native Language

93. Acceptable amount of time per document

94. Number of metadata fields

95. Complexity of taxonomyBusiness Users Information Professional Part-time (Volunteer) Dedicated Position Many Publishers Few Publishers Diverse Publisher Homogenous Publishers

97. Roles and Responsibilities

98. Managers

99. Reviewers

100. Policies

101. For naming

102. Required Fields

103. Procedures

104. For reviewing and approving metadata placement

106. Avoid deep taxonomies:

107. May frustrate users with too many clicks

108. May indicate too much specification or too much information

110. Avoid overly broad taxonomies:

111. May frustrate users with too many initial options

112. May indicate your categories are too specific

115. Easy to scan

117. Respond to change: validate and modify regularly

118. Invest in dedicated, long-term resources

119. Initial effort must have foresight

120. Establish a solid foundation

121. Allow extensibility to accommodate new information

123. The Workshop Concept

124. Workshop Configuration

126. Set expectations for long and challenging process:

127. Establish overall goals – create a “Starter Taxonomy” and initial metadata strategy to be used as a jumping-off point

128. Create a value statementCreating a value statement ensures all participants are on the same mission, and can describe and disseminate the project the same way

131. Description of the issue - what’s changing?

132. Description of the issue’s importance - why are we changing?

133. Description of the benefits of addressing the issue - what’s in it for me now? Later?

134. Description of the costs associated with the change - what is the cost/benefit analysis for me and the business?

136. Channel Partners

137. Distributors

138. OEMs

139. Representatives

140. Consultants

141. Customers

142. OEMs

143. End Users

144. Business Partners

145. Public

146. Investors

147. Media

149. Pre-Teen

150. Teen

151. Adult

152. Students

153. Pre-Teen

154. Teen

155. Adult

156. Businesses

157. Community Members

158. Media/Press

159. Investors

160. Policymakers

162. People have missions – the verbs align with the missions users need to accomplish / need for informationCare for associates Build Design Profit Sell Manufacture Build Deliver Store Ship Support Manufacture Manufacture Design Purchase Sell Market Ship Ensure Safety Provide Security Test Quality Train Users Market Purchase Innovate Provide Safety Test Market Support Guarantee Train Use Buy Write Ship Manufacture Care for associates Design Support Manufacture Market Ship Ensure Safety Provide Security Learn Teach Protect Serve

163. Nouns Identify the topics: Record all input, even repeats, for visual cognition! Safety Environment Profit Safety Training Employee Benefits Production Quality Products Sales Marketing Quality Control Dept Products People Safety Solutions Products Marketing Research Core Industries Training Teams Competitors Sales Employees Products Research Plant Knowledge Management Training Customers Products Associates Plan Supply Chain Infrastructure Compliance Products Customers Finance Auditing Associates Knowledge Customers Computers Supply Chain Sales Research Products Processes Technology Employees Research Safety Services Sales Marketing Safety

164. Nouns - Topics Map topics

165. Nouns - Topics Continue to map topics Employees Products Research Manufacturing Safety/health Sales/marketing Financials

167. Products

168. Sales/Marketing

169. Financials

170. Safety/Health

171. Research

174. Engage additional end users for validation and guidance

175. Hold additional workshops to refine and provide greater detail

176. Utilize focus groups for further validation and naming

178. Thank you! www.ppc.com