Using Taxonomies Effectively in the Organization

1. Using Taxonomies Effectively in the Organization KMWorld 2000 Mike Crandall Microsoft Information Services mikecran@microsoft.com

2. Roadmap • What are taxonomies? • Where do taxonomies fit? • What are taxonomies good for? • How do you build them? • How do you use them? • Issues and challenges Using Taxonomies- Microsoft Information Services

3. What are Taxonomies? • Taxonomy: a classification of elements within a domain • Domain: a sphere of knowledge, influence, or activity • Classification: the operation of grouping elements and establishing relationships between them (or the product of that operation) • Relationships: a defined linkage between two elements • Element: an object or concept Using Taxonomies- Microsoft Information Services

4. Where do Taxonomies Fit? Using Taxonomies- Microsoft Information Services

5. What are Taxonomies Good For? • Taxonomies are applied to: • Items: (aka resources) individual pieces of information (documents, people, etc…) • By the use of: • Metadata: (aka properties, attributes) information describing types of data. • Which may or may not use values from a: • Vocabulary: selection of terms, classified or sorted • To create: • Content: an item and its associated metadata Using Taxonomies- Microsoft Information Services

6. How Do You Build Taxonomies? • Determine scope of project • Boundaries will determine resources needed • Breadth and depth are both important dimensions • Obtain resource commitments • Project will require both high and low level support • If cross-organizational, even more critical Using Taxonomies- Microsoft Information Services

7. First Steps • User needs survey to understand: • The content your users need to do their work • The ways your users access that content • Information audit to determine: • Where your existing content is • How that content is structured • Who is responsible for the content Using Taxonomies- Microsoft Information Services

8. Sample Survey Questions MSWeb Redesign Information Goals/User Assessment Sheet: 1.        List the top five most important information services/or products under your area that you think most employees need to know about? What is the business impact of employees not being aware of this information? 2.        Are there additional services and/or information/products within your area that would benefit from increased exposure? Describe the potential business value from employees having a better awareness or understanding of this information. 3.        What types of content/information do you think is missing from MSWeb? Why is it important that this…. Using Taxonomies- Microsoft Information Services

9. Sample Tag Audit Using Taxonomies- Microsoft Information Services

10. Next Steps • Involve your users • Include key stakeholders in process • Validate direction with content owners and users • Decide on architectural approach • Dependent on purpose of project • Complexity will depend on needs Using Taxonomies- Microsoft Information Services

11. The Process • Identify • business • needs • _______ • User • needs • survey • Tag • audit • Content • audit • Define • needed • attributes • _______ • Build • object • model • Create • flat list • Provide • mapping • schema? • Collect/ • structure • terms • ________ • Build • vocabs • Define • rules • Create • change • control • process • Tag • content • ________ • Embed • vocab • access • in tools • Provide • guidelines • for use • Expose • Content • ________ • Embed • tags in • interfaces • Segment • content by • attributes • Enable • thru • XML/XSL Using Taxonomies- Microsoft Information Services

12. How do You Use Taxonomies? • Content creation- tagging • Site navigation- categories • Information retrieval- search • Personalization- delivery Using Taxonomies- Microsoft Information Services

13. Content Creation • Tagging of documents, URLs, other items is critical for improved retrieval • Two examples: • MSWeb Best Bets database- catalog of URLs used in search and categories • News publishing tool- used for tagging external and internal news for portal display Using Taxonomies- Microsoft Information Services

14. Using Taxonomies- Microsoft Information Services

15. Using Taxonomies- Microsoft Information Services

16. Using Taxonomies- Microsoft Information Services

17. Using Taxonomies- Microsoft Information Services

18. Site Navigation • Much of a portal’s navigation centers around organization of information through categories • Categories can be considered a site-specific vocabulary, used to tag URLs • MSWeb uses taxonomy management tools for this purpose Using Taxonomies- Microsoft Information Services

19. MSWeb Categories Using Taxonomies- Microsoft Information Services

20. Category subpage Using Taxonomies- Microsoft Information Services

21. Taxonomies in Search

22. MSWeb Search Using Taxonomies- Microsoft Information Services

23. Key measure Q4 99 Q1 00 Q2 00 Total number of registered sites 834 858 808 Average # Best Bets returned with 20 top search strings 3.6 2.75 4.35 Modal # BB with top 20 1 5 1 Median # BB with top 20 2.5 3 3 Percentage of all top search strings that return Best Bets 69% 85% 98% Percentage of 50 top search strings that return BBs 82% 84% 98% Percentage of 20 top search strings that return BBs 90% 80% 100% Number of all top search strings returning 10 or more Best Bets 18 12 5 Number of top50 search strings returning 10 or more BB 6 10 5 Number of top 20 search strings returning 10 or more BB 3 6 4 Results Using Taxonomies- Microsoft Information Services

24. Using Taxonomies- Microsoft Information Services

25. Personalization • The last step in linking content to people • Requires well tagged content, and the ability to capture a user profile • Current directions for MSWeb are to take advantage of Active Directory profiles, based on values pulled from common taxonomy • Still in beginning stages Using Taxonomies- Microsoft Information Services

26. Conflicts in Using Taxonomies • Flexibility versus stability • Costs versus resource commitments • Focus versus breadth of scope • Localization versus globalization • Speed versus thoroughness Using Taxonomies- Microsoft Information Services

27. Challenges • Finding common ground across multiple taxonomies or schemas with similar terms and different meanings • Overkill…building relationships where they aren’t practical given severe human resource constraints • Ensuring the ongoing integrity of the taxonomy • Acceptance by authors of tagging tools • Application across object types, storage devices, languages, context • Integration with legacy systems and external content Using Taxonomies- Microsoft Information Services

28. Key Success Factors • Define in terms of business value • authority, relevance, timeliness, impact • Include metrics to prove success • Balance between control and collaboration • Meet key stakeholder criteria on costs to build, costs to maintain • Take usability/user behavior seriously • Manage expectations all round Using Taxonomies- Microsoft Information Services

29. Questions? Mike Crandall mikecran@microsoft.com Using Taxonomies- Microsoft Information Services