Survey Tools Taxonomy Building Semantic Conference

A Survey:
Taxonomy Building Tools
Semantic Technology Conference - May 21, 2008

Rachel Lovinger

Page 1 © 2008 Avenue A | Razorfish, Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction
Content Strategy Consultant

Information
Design
Architecture

Copy Business
Writing Needs

Library User
Science Needs


Photo by Kyknoord

About This Survey
This evaluation is about finding useful,
usable tools that will help unlock the story
that data has to tell.

The solutions have evolved,
and so have our problems.


About This Survey
Looking for tools to
• Develop taxonomy, controlled vocabulary,
and metadata relationships
• Prototype data so that designers can
create meaningful interactive experiences
• Provide non-technical business users
with a way to visualize and verify data


About This Survey
Not evaluating
• Tool integration
• Data mapping, migration or conversion
• Data formats or standards


Agenda
•A DIY tale
•The problem 1999
•The problem 2008
•Survey: Tools available now
•What if…?


A DIY tale


Photo by Lenore M. Edman, www.evilmadscientist.com

The problem 1999:
We need metadata!


Photo by Kyle Flood

History: EW.com
[1999] The Scenario
•Multiple articles on
the same movie
•Predictable related
data, such as:
lead performers,
release date,
director, etc.

History: EW.com
[1999] Our Needs
•Standardize keywords
•Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace
•Star Wars - Episode I: The Phantom Menace
•Star Wars: The Phantom Menace
•Apply related data with a single selection
•Update once, publish to many pages
•Expose rich data relationships

History: EW.com
[2000] Our Solution: Category Tool
•Relational Database
•Controlled Vocabulary
•Hierarchical


History: EW.com
•Structured category paths:
•Movie > Product > Men in Black
•Person > Individual > Will Smith
•Relationship types:
•Performance, lead
•Director
•Release Date


History: EW.com
•Relationships between categories:
•{Tom DiCillo} Director of {Double Whammy}


History: EW.com
[2000] Our Solution:
Category Tool
•Differentiation:
• Movie > TheGreen Mile
• Book > The Green Mile

• Movie > Cats & Dogs
• Movie > The Truth About
Cats & Dogs

History: TOPICS
[2003] The Next Generation Requirements
•Scalable
•Based on industry standard formats
•Support all existing data needs
•Support data needs that the old system
couldn’t handle
•Reliable


History: TOPICS
[2004] Our Solution
•Opted for RDF & OWL
•No commercial tools suited us
•Wrote specs and built the tool ourselves


History: TOPICS
[2005] Our Solution – Live!
•Pilot system rolled out in early 2005
•Three new sites launched in 6 weeks

Success?
•Sort of…


History: TOPICS
[2005] Further problems
•Awkward integration with an older CMS
•New data not published in real time
•We had to provide all the tool support
•The editors found it complicated to use


History: TOPICS
[2005] Further problems: Usability
•Search
•Browse
•Preview
•QA


The problem 2008:
Make sense of this metadata!


Photo by Kyle Flood

Current needs
[2007] New projects,
familiar problems:
•Taxonomy, metadata,
controlled vocabulary,
and relationships
•Envision how this
data will translate
into a website

A recent problem set
[2008] A colleague posed this problem:
•Articles related to ideas, people,
organizations
•Each concept is related to other articles
•Design should demonstrate relationships
•We need to expose the relationships so
we can solve the design problems


A recent problem set
[2008] Key Question
How do we…
•explore the nature and
scope of these relationships…
•and design a meaningful visualization of
the data landscape…
•before we’ve chosen and implemented a
data management solution?

Recap
• 1999 – Need Metadata!
• 2000 – Relational Database Categories
• 2003 – Pushed to its limits
• 2004 – RDF/OWL homegrown tool
• 2005 – Launched several new sites but…
the UI dooms it to failure
• 2008 – Need to Expose, Understand,
Prototype & Share Metadata!

The solutions have evolved,
and so have our problems.


Survey:
Tools available now


Photo by Craig Munro

Selection method
Looking for tools that are
• readily available
• easy to start using
• useful for the design process


Test data
Types of Confections Dietary Considerations
Low Carb
Candy
Low Fat
Hard candy Sugar-Free
Soft candy Nut-Free
Mints Kosher
Vegan
Gummi
Gum Ingredients
Chewing Gum Butterscotch
Bubble Gum Caramel
Chocolate
Chocolate
Fruit
Chocolate Bars Milk
Truffles Mint
Dark Chocolate Nougat
Nuts
Milk Chocolate
Peanut Butter
White Chocolate Soy
Fudge Yogurt
Chocolate Covered
Candy Products
Ice Cream
Reese’s Inside Out Peanut Butter Cups
Pastries Kinder Surprise
Marzipan Dark Chocolate Bar
Brands White Chocolate Pistachio Truffle
White Chocolate Mint Bar with Sprinkles
Ferrero
Milk Chocolate with Raspberry Filling
Hershey’s
Perugina Properties
Ritter Sport hasCandyType - Candy Product > Type
hasBrand - Candy Product > Brand
Sabrina Evans Chocolatier
hasDietaryConsideration - Candy Product >
Dietary Consideration
hasIngredient - Candy Product > Ingredient

Thesaurus Tools
Used to construct lists of hierarchical sets
of data, employing a construction based on
Broader Terms and Narrower Terms.
MultiTes
A.K.A.
Semaphore Ontology Manger
A.C.S TermTree
WebChoir TCS-10

Thesaurus Tool: MultiTes
• Viewed as a alphabetical list, except
when looking at an individual term


• Provides many ways to perform each task


• Create relationships to existing terms by
typing– faster but potentially less accurate

• Probably the easiest of these tools to use


Semaphore Ontology Manager
• Originally designed as a thesaurus tool,
added capability to manage classes and
relationships
• Awkward UI
requires more
steps for
simple tasks


A. C. S. Term Tree
• In default mode, terms are displayed in
both flat and tree mode


WebChoir TCS-10
• Easier to use than some, though it looks
more obscure
• Easy to
change
levels


Drawbacks of Thesaurus Tools
• Require an abstract understanding of
thesaurus type relationships that doesn’t
really contribute to the design process
• Limited support for other relationships
• Moving terms from one level to another
tends to be difficult
• Lack robust visualization options


Brainstorming Tools
Used to quickly map concepts and terms.
More visual and easier to add, remove and
rearrange things rapidly, while working.
Mindjet MindManager
Bubbl.us
FreeMind


Brainstorming Tool: MindManager

• Visual
expression of
hierarchy
• Collapse
branches for
greater clarity


• Visual cues
guide user as
they work with
the terms


• Other
relationships
become messy


Bubbl.us

• Online
• Free
• Sharable


Freemind

• Free
• Easy
• Less
stylish


Drawbacks of Brainstorming Tools
• Not great for expressing non-hierarchical
relationships
• Becomes difficult to read when there are
a large number of nodes


Ontology Tools
Used to capture metadata using semantic
standards. More flexible and powerful in
the types of relationships they can capture.
SWOOP
Altova SemanticWorks
Protégé
TopQuadrant TopBraid Composer

Ontology Tool: SWOOP

• Load or
create data
• Browse
classes with
properties
& instances



• Browse
instances &
assertions



• “Flying the
mother ship”
view


Protégé

• Very easy to use for OWL editing
Page 49
• Visualization requires GraphViz

TopQuadrant Top Braid

• Very robust tool


• Built in visualizations: Class Diagram


• Built in visualizations: Graph

Drawbacks of Ontology Tools
• Required knowledge of the workings of
RDF and OWL could be a barrier
• Not enough of them have good, flexible
visualization options


Visualization Tools
Used primarily for viewing and exploring
data and relationships, not for creating or
editing.
RDF Gravity
IBM ManyEyes
OwlSight
Wordmap

Visualization Tool: RDF Gravity

Page 55 • Load OWL or RDF file

Visualization Tool: RDF Gravity

Page 56 • Show or Hide elements as needed

ManyEyes: Treemap

Page 57 • Online, free, public data, spreadsheet

ManyEyes: Bubble Chart

Page 58 • Online, free, public data, spreadsheet

OwlSight

Page 59 • Online, free, similar to SWOOP

Wordmap

Page 60 • Very simple taxonomy explorer

Drawbacks of Visualization Tools
• Data has to be created elsewhere and
imported
• Most are not quite flexible enough to
show a wide range of data relationships


What if…?


Photo by Kyle Flood

Discussion
What would you look for in an ideal tool?


Thanks
To colleagues who shared examples,
insights and feedback. And to flickr.com
users who made their images available
through Creative Commons:
by Kyknoord Some rights reserved.

by Lenore M. Edman, www.evilmadscientist.com Some rights reserved.

by Kyle Flood Some rights reserved.

by Craig Munro Some rights reserved.


Questions?


Photo by Kyle Flood

Thank You!
Complete presentation is available at:
http://blog.rachellovinger.com/stc08
More details on each tool discussed will be
published in upcoming weeks at:
http://blog.rachellovinger.com/metadata-tools/

Rachel Lovinger
Rachel.Lovinger@avenuea-razorfish.com

Survey Tools Taxonomy Building Semantic Conference

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