Taxonomies are essential to making the web "go". Information architects and content strategists can use and promote taxonomy within their organizations to increase findability and usability of a website. Learn more about taxonomies and see some great examples.

1. Taxonomy 101
Theresa Putkey, Information Architect & Taxonomist
tputkey@keypointe.ca
@tputkey
www.keypointe.ca

2. In This Talk...
● What it is
● What it’s good for
● Definitions
● Learn more and integrate it into your work

3. What It Is

4. What It Is
An approach to categorizing “untraditional” information
Untraditional
Adjective
Not existing in or as part of a tradition; not customary or long-
established

5. The Establishment

6. Example 1
A client had a lot of files related to their
product offerings. The files were a mess
across several network drives and personal
hard drives. They needed to implement a
digital asset management system to keep
track of the files. In a DAM, you need to
categorize files.
● File audit
● Taxonomy development
● Taxonomy training
● Implementation support in DAM

7. DAM Metadata

8. Example 1
A client had a lot of files related to
their product offerings. The files
were a mess across several
network drives and personal hard
drives.
They needed to implement a digital
asset management system to keep
track of the files. In a DAM, you
need to categorize files.
● File audit
● Taxonomy development
● Taxonomy training
● Implementation support in DAM

9. Example 2
Re-doing a Support website and
customers complain they can’t
find information
Call centre seeing a lot of
volume for questions that can
be answered online
● Content audit
● Taxonomy development
● Taxonomy training

10. Example 3
Redoing website and have a lot
of files. Users need to browse
these topics by different angles
and the company needs to
show that it is the definitive
resource for these topics.
● Content audit
● Taxonomy framework
● Taxonomy development
● Taxonomy training

11. More Complex Framework

12. Example 4
Redoing website to show better
value to members. Members
were confused about the
company’s vocabulary and
processes. Company needed to
show better value and
exhaustive content.
● Content audit
● Taxonomy framework
● Taxonomy development
● Taxonomy training

13. Simple Framework

14. What It’s Good For

15. Modern Day
We have software products that are extremely information heavy
Managed with wCMS, eCMS, cCMS, DAM, PIM, MAM
How do we keep track of all the things in those systems? Web pages,
videos, graphics, photos, master files, documents, PDFs, etc.

16. What It’s Good For
● Authors and editors can categorize “information” to find it again
● Users can find information
● Dynamically display information on a website (not building pages by
hand)
● Controlling terminology
● Provide more accurate search results
● Provide better search refinement

17. Information-As-Thing
The term "information" is also used attributively for objects, such as
data and documents, that are referred to as "information" because
they are regarded as being informative, as "having the quality of
imparting knowledge or communicating information; instructive."
Buckland, “Information as Thing” (1991)
http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~buckland/thing.html

18. Tag to Find Again
From Adobe CQ5 documentation

19. Users Can Find Information

20. Users Can Find Information

21. Dynamic Display of Information

22. Dynamic Display of Information

23. Controlling Terminology

24. Controlling Terminology

25. Controlling Terminology

26. Better Search Results Refinement

27. Better Search Results Refinement

28. More Definitions

29. Hierarchical Taxonomy
● Used when hierarchical structure of items is very important and well-
understood
● Preserves relationships (parent-child, siblings)
● But can be more difficult to navigate because people have to know the
domain

30. Linnaeus’s Taxonomy

31. Faceted Taxonomy
● Used when attributes are more important than hierarchy
● Facets are conceptually mutually exclusive
● Easier to navigate
● But can hinder someone looking for hierarchical relationships
● Used by many e-commerce websites

32. Sears.ca

33. Sears.ca

34. Learn More and Integrate It
Into Your Work

35. Use It!
● Start learning about how it can be used on a website, in a CMS, or other
digital product
● Technical writers - indexing
● Information architects - structure
● Content strategists - themes, topics

36. Project Approach
● User interviews: ask them what terms they use
● Search engine terms: what people are searching for on Google or Bing
that brings them to your site
● On-site search terms: On the site, what people are searching for
● Content audit: pick out keywords
● Put all these keywords together and start creating themes, topic areas,
etc.

37. High Level View

38. Good Resources
Taxonomy posts
http://www.keypointe.ca/category/taxonomy-and-metadata/
When to use a hierarchical or faceted taxonomy
http://www.keypointe.ca/when-to-use-a-hierarchical-or-a-faceted-
taxonomy/
Faceted taxonomy resources
http://www.keypointe.ca/faceted-taxonomy-resource/

39. Taxonomies in Action

40. SAE.org

41. BT.com

42. BT.com

43. Craigslist

44. LinkedIn

45. Crutchfield.com

46. My Info Theresa Putkey
tputkey@keypointe.ca
www.keypointe.ca
@tputkey
ca.linkedin.com/in/tputkey
604 563 6317