Strategies LLCTaxonomy Sept. 28, 2005Copyright 2005 Taxonomy Strategies LLC. All rights reserved....
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Transcript of Strategies LLCTaxonomy Sept. 28, 2005Copyright 2005 Taxonomy Strategies LLC. All rights reserved....
Strategies LLCTaxonomy
Sept. 28, 2005 Copyright 2005 Taxonomy Strategies LLC. All rights reserved.
Ron DanielTaxonomy Strategies LLC
Frequently Asked Questions about Taxonomies and Metadata
2Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information
Pop Quiz
On a blank piece of paper:
• What questions did you want to have answered by coming to today’s talks?
• What new questions do you have, based on what you’ve learned from the previous presentations?
Flag one question to be answered later.
You do NOT have to provide your name.
Please DO provide your job title, division, and either company or company type.
3Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information
Agenda
Pop Quiz FAQs – Frequently Asked Questions SAQs – Seldom Asked Questions Today’s Questions
4Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information
What is a taxonomy – just a folder structure or something else?
Irony in action – there is no agreed definition of what a “taxonomy” is. When talking with someone about taxonomy, make sure
you are talking about the same things.
We look at taxonomies and metadata together. The metadata specification will call for several fields
that take pre-defined lists of values. Those lists, flat or hierarchical, are “facets” within the
overall taxonomy.
5Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information
Other things sometimes called taxonomy
Type Remarks
Synonym Ring Connects a series of terms together Treats them as equivalent for search purposes
e.g (Dog, Canine, Pooch, Mutt) (Cat, Feline, Kitty), …
Authority File Used to control variant names with a preferred term Typically used for names of countries, individuals, organizations
e.g. (IBM, Big Blue, International Business Machines Inc.)
Classification Scheme
A hierarchical arrangement of terms May or may not follow strict “is-a” hierarchy rules Usually enumerated; ie, LC or Dewey
Thesaurus Expresses semantic relationships of: • Hierarchy (broader & narrower terms)• Equivalence (synonyms) • Associative (related terms)
May include definitions
Ontology Resembles faceted taxonomy but uses richer semantic relationships among terms and attributes and strict specification rules
A model of reality
6Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information
How do taxonomies actually improve search?
Input (Query) Side
“Search” using a small set of pre-defined values instead of trying to guess what word or words might have been used in the content.
Have synonyms mapped together so searches for “car” and “automobile” return the same things.
Output (Results) Side
Organize search results into groups of related items.
Sorting and filtering
Refinement
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Taxonomy in action on the results side
Position Category
Company
City
State
Salary
8Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information
Who should build the taxonomy?
The taxonomy (and metadata specification) should be produced by a cross-functional team which includes business, technical, information management, and content creation stakeholders.
The team should plan on maintaining the taxonomy as well as building it. Maintenance will not (usually) be anyone’s full-time job. Exact mix of people on team will change.
It should be built in an iterative fashion, with more content and broader review for each iteration.
9Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information
How big should the taxonomy be?
Consultant’s answer – “It depends” How much content do you need to organize? How fine-grained does the categorization need to be?
Overly-simplistic method: Nterms = # items / desired bucket size (1 M documents, 100 documents / bucket = > 10k buckets) Bad method – documents don’t distribute evenly
Second method: # facets ≈ Log(# items) ± 2 (1 M items => 5..7 facets) Sum of terms across all facets < 1200 in most cases
10Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information
How do we know we have a good taxonomy?
Method Process Who Requires Validation
Walk-thru Show & explain Taxonomist SME Team
Rough taxonomy
Approach Appropriateness to task
Walk-thru Check conformance to editorial rules
Taxonomist Draft taxonomy
Editorial Rules
Consistent look and feel
Usability Testing
Contextual analysis (card sorting, scenario testing, etc.)
Users Rough taxonomy
Tasks & Answers
Tasks are completed successfully Time to complete task is reduced
User Satisfaction
Survey Users Rough Taxonomy
UI Mockup Search
prototype
Reaction to taxonomy Reaction to new interface Reaction to search results
Tagging Samples
Tag sample content with taxonomy
Taxonomist Team Indexers
Sample content
Rough taxonomy (or better)
Content ‘fit’ Fills out content inventory Training materials for people &
algorithms Basis for quantitative methods
11Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information
Taxonomy validation: Tagging content How many items?
GoalNumber of
Items Criteria
Illustrate metadata schema 1-3 Random (excluding junk)
Develop training documentation
10-20 Show typical & unusual cases
Qualitative test of small vocabulary (<100 categories)
25-50 Random (excluding junk)
Quantitative test of vocabularies
3-10X number of categories
Use computer-assisted methods when more than 10-20 categories. Pre-existing metadata is the most meaningful.
The best way to validate a taxonomy is to use it to tag some content.
12Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information
Taxonomy validation: Closed card sorting
Useful to validate whether the terms in a taxonomy are organized in a way that is commonly understood. Ask people to sort narrower terms in a taxonomy into
the broad categories or facets. The card sort is considered closed if you provide the
names of those broad categories. Ask people if there are facets that they think should be
added and why. 15-20 users are sufficient to get useful feedback.
13Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information
Taxonomy validation: Quantitative MethodHow evenly does it divide the content?
Documents will not distribute uniformly across categories
Zipf (1/x) distribution is expected behavior
80/20 rule in action (actually 70/20 rule)
0
50,000
100,000
150,000
200,000
250,000
300,000
350,000
Congre
sses
Biogra
phy
Period
icals
Map
s
Fiction
Exhib
itions
Juve
nile l
itera
ture
Bibliog
raph
y
Statis
tics
Top 10 Content Types
Nu
mb
er o
f R
eco
rds
Leading candidate for splitting
Leading candidates for merging
Above the curve is better than expected
14Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information
What if I have to do it solo?
Realize: Its not totally solo – IT help,
Graphics & UI help, Business Goals help, Funding help, Review & QA help…
You are the general contractor It needs to be part of your
objectives Limit the objectives to what can be
achieved by you, and by your organization
Concentrate: Resource allocation
(i.e. Manage your time) Fundamental processes
Query log examination Error correction procedure
Communications!!!
Cherry-pick from Roles on a larger team: Business Lead – align with
organization goals, get needed resources, make cost/benefit decisions, report upstairs
IT Liaison – Work with IT specialists to get software installed, logs gathered, content harvested, etc. Consider impact of changes on tools and data
Taxonomy / Search Specialist – analyze behavior and suggest changes. Implement changes which pass cost/benefit muster
Website/User Representative – consider impact of changes on users and job performance
15Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information
Where do the benefits come from?Common taxonomy ROI scenarios
Catalog site - ROI based on increased sales through improved: Product findability Product cross-sells and up-sells Customer loyalty
Call center - ROI based on cutting costs through: Fewer customer calls due to improved website self-service Faster, more accurate CSR responses through better information access
Compliance – ROI based on: Avoiding penalties for breaching regulations Following required procedures (e.g. Medical claims)
Knowledge worker productivity - ROI based on cutting costs through: Less time searching for things Less time recreating existing materials, with knock-on benefits of less confusion and
reduced storage and backup costs
Executive mandate No ROI at the start, just someone with a vision and the budget to make it happen
16Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information
Agenda
Pop Quiz FAQs – Frequently Asked Questions SAQs – Seldom Asked Questions Your Questions
17Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information
What should I be thinking about at the start of a taxonomy project?Taxonomy development and maintenance is the LEAST of three
problems: The Taxonomy Problem: How are we going to build and maintain the lists
of pre-defined values that can go into some of the metadata elements?
The Tagging Problem: How are we going to populate metadata elements with complete and consistent values?
What can we expect to get from automatic classifiers? What kind of error detection and error correction procedures do we need? What fields do we need?
The ROI (Return On Investment) Problem: How are we going to use content, metadata, and vocabularies in applications to obtain business benefits?
More sales? Lower support costs? Greater productivity? Risk avoidance? How much content? How big an operating budget? How to expose to users?
Business Goals and Cultural Factors are major influences on tagging and taxonomy. These must be acknowledged at the start to avoid rework.
18Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information
What must change when the Taxonomy changes?
There’s more to maintaining the Taxonomy than maintaining just the taxonomy.
The master copy of the taxonomy.
Announcements for stakeholders!
The information sent to downstream users of the taxonomy.The versions and formats of the taxonomy distributed to others.The list of changes.
The data tagged with the taxonomy?
The user interface which uses the taxonomy?
Backend system software which uses the taxonomy?
The training set for automatic classifiers?
The educational material for users, catalogers, programmers, etc.?
19Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information
Agenda
Pop Quiz FAQs – Frequently Asked Questions SAQs – Seldom Asked Questions Your Questions
21Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information
Why do we usually recommend faceted taxonomies? Categorize in multiple,
independent, categories.
Allow combinations of categories to narrow the choice of items.
4 independent categories of 10 nodes each have the same discriminatory power as one hierarchy of 10,000 nodes (104) Easier to maintain Easier to reusue existing
material Can be easier to navigate, if
software supports it
Main Ingredients
Cooking Methods
Meal Type Cuisines
• Chocolate• Dairy• Fruits• Grains• Meat &
Seafood• Nuts• Olives• Pasta• Spices &
Seasonings• Vegetables
• Breakfast• Brunch• Lunch• Supper• Dinner• Snack
• African• American• Asian• Caribbean• Continental• Eclectic/
Fusion/ International
• Jewish• Latin American• Mediterranean• Middle Eastern• Vegetarian
• Advanced• Bake• Broil• Fry• Grill• Marinade• Microwave• No Cooking• Poach• Quick• Roast• Sauté• Slow
Cooking• Steam• Stir-fry
42 values to maintain (10+6+11+15)
9900 combinations (10x6x11x15)
22Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information
What could possibly go wrong with a little edit?
ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) team made a change to the product line data element in the product hierarchy.
They did not know this data was used by downstream applications outside of ERP.
An item data standards council discovered the error.
If the error had not been identified and fixed, the company’s sales force would not be correctly compensated.
“Lack of the enterprise data standards process in the item subject area has cost us at least 30 person
days of just ‘category’ rework.”
Source: Danette McGilvray, Granite Falls Consulting, Inc.
22
23Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information
When should we NOT use facets?
When you have to work with software that can’t handle them. Remember, software is replaced but data is migrated.
When you need to use an existing standard taxonomy.
…By Content Type
Calendars & EventsTop Links…
HolidaysUpcoming Events
Federal Reserve System…Beige BookBoard of GovernorsFOMC
More Calendars & Events…ERACOfficer AvailabilityStaff ConferenceToastmastersTours
DirectoriesDocumentationFormsNewsPolicies & Procedures
By OrganizationFederal Reserve SystemFRB Atlanta
Board of DirectorsExecutive OfficeManagement CommitteeResearch DivisionS&R Division
Facets can help you build a useful
hierarchy. This one is
a mix of content type and
organization.
24Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information
What are facets I might think about?
E&P Lifecycle
Hydro carbon System
Geologic Age
Process Mgmt
Lease Mgmt Other Orgs
Basins, Reservoirs
& Fields
FacilitiesWells Disciplines
Countries & Regions
ReservesHuman
ResourcesContent Types
Production
Locations Org Chart
Strategies LLCTaxonomy
Sept. 28, 2005 Copyright 2005 Taxonomy Strategies LLC. All rights reserved.
Questions?
Ron Daniel
925-368-8371