representing taxonomies: what am i looking at here?

May 23, 2007

Representing Taxonomies: What am I looking at here?By Rachel Lovinger

Semantic Technology Conference 2007

Photo by Sarah Jane Rhee

©2007 Avenue A | Razorfish. All rights reserved. This material contains confidential and proprietary information of Avenue A | Razorfish and may not be reproduced, distributed or disclosed, in whole or in part, without its express consent. Page 1

• Introduction• The Mission• Approaches• Future Directions• Resources

Photo by Rachel Lovinger


Largest independent interactive consulting firm in the U.S.

2000 professionals with average of 10+ years experience

Bring together core disciplines of business strategy, user experience design, program management and technology.

Pioneers and recognized experts around a user-centered, insight-driven approach to designing web experiences

Deep technology experience in content management, portals, e-commerce, personalization, and business intelligence

2005 AdAge™ – Best Interactive Media Agency of the Year

Offices in 11 U.S. cities, Europe and Asia/Pacific:-Atlanta -Seattle-Austin, TX -Berlin-Boston -Frankfurt-Chicago -London-Ft. Lauderdale -Paris-Los Angeles -Hong Kong-New York -Shanghai-Philadelphia -Sydney-Portland, OR -Tokyo-San Francisco -Kobe

About Avenue A | Razorfish


Representing Taxonomy Is About…

How to help your project stakeholders understand and work with large, complex sets of taxonomy data


What We Won’t Be Covering

• How to get approval to do taxonomy work as part of a project

• How to build a taxonomy

Note: Domain expertise not required


Formula for Successful Taxonomy Building

Deliverable Design

+

Communication

“Politics and consensus building are the toughest aspects of building a taxonomy”


Terminology

• Taxonomy

• Classification

• Controlled Vocabulary

• Ontology• Metadata• Authority File• Attributes• Dimensions• Facets • Glossary• Thesaurus• Page Inventory• Sitemap

• -----------

• Stakeholders

• Contributors

• Subject Matter Experts

• Editors• Client• Boss



Photo by Tom Marscado


You Want to Create a Data Driven Site

What makes these concepts work?

MoMACitegraph Allmusic

http://allmusic.com/

http://www.citegraph.com/

http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/2005/contemporaryvoices/flash.html


Citegraph



MoMA Contemporary Voices



All Music Guide



Your Mission


• The site needs taxonomy data• The taxonomy needs decisions made by experts

How do you facilitate & document those decisions?

http://allmusic.com/

http://www.citegraph.com/

http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/2005/contemporaryvoices/flash.html



Photo by Yu Kizawa


Concept Wireframes Design

Groundwork & High Level

Dimensions &Relationships

DetailedTaxonomy

Build Live

Usage & Maintenance

Communication

Taxonomy Tasks

When Do You Start?

Web Dev Phase

Aligning taxonomy building with the web development process


What Do You Need From Stakeholders?

• Get approval for data

• Get expert input

• Build partnership and ownership

• Distributed communication





DetailedTaxonomy

Build Live

Usage & Maintenance

Communication

Taxonomy Tasks

Concept Phase

Web Dev Phase

Key Question: What is the site about?

Tip: Start building consensus as early as possible.


Do the Groundwork

To make good taxonomy decisions, the stakeholders need to know:• What does your audience want?

• What does your site need to do?

• How are other people doing it?

• Do you have some data to start with?

• What can you learn from the way people use the site?

Summarize your findings in a brief document


Demonstrate Functionality In Action

Example: Robust faceted navigation

http://www.etoys.com/


Prepare the Stakeholders to Think Like Taxonomists

The less abstract the work is, the more engaged they’ll be:• Define taxonomy terms and concepts

• Tell them exactly what the taxonomy will do

• Give them the context for making decisions

• Be specific about what you need from them


Use Humor to Make It Less Intimidating


Taxonomy Documentation Styles

• Diagram

• Outline

• Spreadsheet

• Other TablesNot great for people

• XML

• RDF

• N-triples


Communicating About Taxonomy Documentation

• “How to use this document” instructions

• Talking points for distributed communication

• Track important decisions





DetailedTaxonomy

Build Live

Usage & Maintenance

Communication

Taxonomy Tasks

Wireframe Phase

Web Dev Phase

Key Question: How is the information organized?

Tip: Use real taxonomy data in the wireframes


Diagram Format: Structure

• Dimensions

• Polyhierarchy

• Relationship details

• Not effective for showing nodes

Illustrations - Peter Morville, as seen in Ambient Findability (O’Reilly Media).


Dimensions

Fashion Magazine

Locations People Holidays & Occasions

Gifts

Brands

Fashion EntertainmentStores Beauty


Fashion Magazine

Locations People Holidays & Occasions

GiftsFashion EntertainmentStores Beauty

Polyhierarchy

Photos © Bravo TV & NBC Universal. All rights reserved.

Heidi Klum

Supermodel TV Host


Relationship Structure


Relationship Sample Data

The Departed © Warner Brothers; The Queen © Miramax. All rights reserved.


Not Effective For Showing Nodes


Outline Format: Limited Detail

• Hierarchical

• Dimensions and narrower terms

• Dozens of nodes, not hundreds

Fashion ProductsAccessories

BeltsHats GlovesScarves SocksUmbrellasWallets

BagsClutchMakeup BagsShoulderSuitcasesToteWeekend Bags

Coats & JacketsBlazersParkasPonchosRaincoatsSweater-coatsTrench-coatsVests

PantsCroppedJeansShortsTailored

Shirts & BlousesLong-sleeveShort-sleeveSleeve-lessT-shirts

ShoesBootsClogsSneakersFlatsMulesPumpsSandalsSlingbacksSlippers


Wireframes With Fake Taxonomy

The functionality isn’t accurately represented, if the data is completely made up.


Use Real Sample Data





DetailedTaxonomy

Build Live

Usage & Maintenance

Communication

Taxonomy Tasks

Design Phase

Web Dev Phase

Key Question: What’s the actual data?

Tip: Prototype the data.


Spreadsheet Format: Extensive Data

• Many nodes

• Faceted

• Few dimensions

• Some Attributes

• Less effective for complex relationships


Spreadsheet – Pivot Tables


Other Tables: Attributes

• More familiar

• Many relationships

• Defined template

• Labor intensive


PrototypeCreated with MindManager


Taxonomy Deliverable Design Tips

• Appropriate level of detail

• Don’t try to do it all in one

• Make it appealing to look at

• Make it familiar

`


Too Much Detail`


Not Enough Detail`







`


Multiple Deliverables Working Together`







`


Hard To Look At = Hard To Understand`

Too Busy Clean & Comprehensible







`


Use Design Elements Associated With The Project`





DetailedTaxonomy

Build Live

Usage & Maintenance

Communication

Taxonomy Tasks

Build Phase & Live

Web Dev Phase

Key Question: How do we make sure this taxonomy is used properly and is still relevant in six months?

Tip: If they don’t own it, they won’t use it.


Get Ready to Hand It Over

• How to use the data for content creation

• How to maintain the taxonomy


Tagging Guidelines

• Define the terms

• How to apply the tags

• Affect on the site


Change Management Plan

• Definitions and guidelines

• What kind of changes can be made

• Who can make changes

• How to assess the impact of changes

• How often changes will be made


Future Directions

• Best Practices

• Prototyping tools– Easy to use– Support flexible data structures– User-friendly presentation

• Adoption of standards


• Introduction• The Mission• Approaches • Future Directions• Resources

Photo by Dave Gorman


Resources• Glossaries

– Taxonomy Glossary on CMS Wiki– Metadata? Thesauri? Taxonomies? Topic Maps! – A paper on Topic Maps that

includes a good overview of these terms. By Lars Marius Garshol of Ontopia.

• Selling Taxonomy– Dublin Core Metadata Initiative – includes business cases, ROI presentation, etc.– Taxonomy today, ROI tomorrow – By David Berlind, ZDnet

• Constructing Taxonomy– ANSI/NISO Z39.19 - 2005 Guidelines for the Construction, Format, and

Management of Monolingual Controlled Vocabularies (PDF)– Developing and Creatively Leveraging Hierarchical Metadata and Taxonomy – by

Christian Ricci, Boxes & Arrows

• Existing Taxonomy Data– Thousands of OWL documents are indexed in Google. Add “filetype:owl” to your

search and see what comes up.

http://www.cmswiki.com/tiki-index.php?page=TaxonomyGlossary

http://www.ontopia.net/topicmaps/materials/tm-vs-thesauri.html

http://www.dublincore.org/groups/corporate/

http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/Taxonomy_today,_ROI_tomorrow.html

http://www.niso.org/standards/resources/Z39-19-2005.pdf

http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/developing_and_creatively_leveraging_hierarchical_metadata_and_taxonomy


Resources

• Prototyping– MindJet® MindManger® - commercial mind mapping software– FreeMind – open source mind mapping software– Bubbl.us – an online brainstorming tool– TopBraid Composer™ - a commercial tool for building ontologies and semantic

web applications– Protégé – an open source ontology editor

• Shared Knowledge– Taxonomy Community of Practice– CM Pros – Content Management Community of Practice– Semantic Web Interest Group

• Information Design– Edward Tufte– VisualComplexity.com– Information Aesthetics

http://www.mindjet.com/us/?google_us=mindjet

http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

http://bubbl.us/

http://www.topbraidcomposer.com/

http://protege.stanford.edu/

http://taxocop.wikispaces.com/

http://www.cmprofessionals.org/

http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/interest/

https://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/index

http://www.visualcomplexity.com/vc/

http://infosthetics.com/


Thanks

To the colleagues who shared their examples, insights and feedback.

And to these flickr.com users who made their images available through Creative Commons:

Sarah Jane Rhee Some rights reserved.

Tom Mascardo Some rights reserved.

Yu Kizawa Some rights reserved.

Dave Gorman Some rights reserved.

Rachel Lovinger Some rights reserved.

http://www.flickr.com/

http://creativecommons.org/

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/

http://flickr.com/photos/ubookworm/206198906/

http://flickr.com/photos/dgbalancesrocks/197272734/

http://flickr.com/photos/mirka23/294196098/



http://flickr.com/photos/sierraromeo/18429746/

http://flickr.com/photos/mascardo/360280849/


Questions?

Rachel [email protected]


representing taxonomies: what am i looking at here?

Technology

required2007 avenue

express consent

taxonomy work

successful taxonomy

site needs taxonomy

complex sets of taxonomy

user experience design

years experience