Presented by Rachel Lovinger at the Content Strategy Consortium, March 2009.

1. Metadata Strategies and Tools
Content Strategy Consortium
March 19, 2009
Page 1 © 2009 Razorfish. All rights reserved.

2. Helping stakeholders
understand and work
with large, complex sets
of metadata
• Get expert input
• Get approval for data
• Build partnership and ownership
• Distributed communication
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3. Successful Metadata & Taxonomy Building
Deliverables
+
Communication
“Politics and consensus building are the
toughest aspects of building a taxonomy”
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4. When Do You Start?
Align with the web development process
Web Dev
Build Live
Concept Wireframes Design
Taxonomy
Detailed
Groundwork Dimensions & Usage &
Taxonomy
& High Level Relationships Maintenance
Communication
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5. Concept Phase
Key Question: What is the site about?
Web Dev
Build Live
Concept Wireframes Design
Taxonomy
Detailed
Groundwork Dimensions & Usage &
Taxonomy
& High Level Relationships Maintenance
Communication
Tip: Start building consensus as early as possible.
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6. Concept Phase Tasks
Why start thinking about metadata and taxonomy needs
during the concept phase?
• Gather background information – audience, goals, resources.
• Identify primary organizing principles of the site.
• Determine what metadata work is needed.
• Scope and schedule the work and deliverables.
• Prepare stakeholders to help you.
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7. Wireframe Phase
Key Question: How is the information organized?
Web Dev
Build Live
Concept Wireframes Design
Taxonomy
Detailed
Groundwork Dimensions & Usage &
Taxonomy
& High Level Relationships Maintenance
Communication
Tip: Use real data in the wireframes
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8. Wireframe Phase Tasks
Dimensions and relationships
• Finalize decisions about structure and complexity.
• Fill in the conceptual models with terms.
• Determine the relationships between metadata facets.
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9. Dimensions
Fashion Magazine
Stores Fashion Entertainment
Beauty Gifts
Holidays &
Locations Brands People
Occasions
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10. Relationships
80th Annual
Oscars 2008 Common Name
Academy Awards
Best Actor
Best Picture
Nominees
Nominees
Winner
Winner
There Will Be Daniel Tommy
Blood
No Country Day-Lewis Lee Jones
Performance in
For Old Men
Vigo
George Johnny
Juno Mortensen
Atonement Clooney Depp
Michael
Clayton
Performance in Performance in
Performance in
Performance in
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11. Design Phase
Key Question: What’s the actual data?
Web Dev
Build Live
Concept Wireframes Design
Taxonomy
Detailed
Groundwork Dimensions & Usage &
Taxonomy
& High Level Relationships Maintenance
Communication
Tip: Prototype the data.
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12. Design Phase Tasks
You’ve built the framework. What comes next?
• Complete the details.
• Collaborate on design.
• Validate against user and business needs.
• Provide input on content management and retrieval.
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13. Details
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14. Build Phase & Live
Key Question: How do we make sure this metadata
is used properly and is still relevant in six months?
Web Dev
Build Live
Concept Wireframes Design
Taxonomy
Detailed
Groundwork Dimensions & Usage &
Taxonomy
& High Level Relationships Maintenance
Communication
Tip: If they don’t own it, they won’t use it.
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15. Build Phase Tasks
Get Ready to Hand It Over
• Provide guidelines for using the metadata in content creation.
• Provide guidelines for maintaining the metadata.
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16. Metadata Tools
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17. Metadata Tools
We need useful, usable tools that will help unlock the
story that data has to tell.
The solutions have evolved,
and so have our problems.
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18. Metadata Tools
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
Looking for tools that are
• Readily available
• Easy to start using
• Useful for the design process
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19. 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
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20. Thesaurus Tool: MultiTes
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21. 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
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22. 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
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23. Brainstorming Tool: MindManager
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24. Drawbacks of Brainstorming Tools
• Not great for expressing non-hierarchical relationships
• Becomes difficult to read when there are a large number of nodes
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25. 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
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26. Ontology Tool: Protégé
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27. Protégé: Visualization
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28. 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
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29. Visualization Tools
Used primarily for viewing and exploring data and
relationships, not for creating or editing.
RDF Gravity
IBM ManyEyes
OwlSight
Wordmap
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30. Visualization Tool: RDF Gravity
• Show or Hide elements as needed
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31. 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
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32. Thank You
Rachel Lovinger
Rachel.Lovinger@razorfish.com
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