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By James Kelway
 This two-part article is a step-by-step guide for those wishing to create new taxonomies for their business unit, or client. It will outline the many different elements that make up a quality taxonomy and the pitfalls you should be aware of when starting a new project.
What is a taxonomy?
The term ‘taxonomy' is a bit of a misnomer, having its origins in Biological study denoting sub-species within a species classification. However, in the business sense of the word, taxonomies can encompass a whole range of different elements that, broadly speaking, are ways of classifying content under categories recognised by a user group.
Confusing nodes and navigation
At this stage it is important not to confuse a taxonomy with a navigation scheme. The labels used on a navigation bar may be different to the underlying taxonomy nodes, and this difference should be made clear to all the people you will be working with to complete the task.
It's a common misunderstanding but, in this article, we will cover taxonomy in terms of site structure and organisation and taxonomy in relation to navigation and design. The two aspects are unique and their relationship with a taxonomy is very different. One is organisation of content and the other is the presentation of its organisation.
Principles of Information Architecture (IA)
When creating a taxonomy, there are several aspects to the task that need special attention. A good place to start is looking at the constituents of the practice of information architecture (IA). When a solution is devised using IA methods, three factors determine the outcome. These are the users, the business (context of use) and the content that is being ordered.
Before using these areas as a basis for taxonomy creation, some awareness of the business culture needs to be applied as well as a realisation that, although one person may be responsible for the creation of the taxonomy, it is necessary to have buy-in and collaboration from a large group of colleagues and users.
Several tools allow this to happen. The diagram below details the elements that combine to form a cohesive, holistic view of a taxonomy that needs to be created.
Fig.1 - Ingredients of a Taxonomy
Looking at the diagram it's easy to see that taxonomy (for want of a better word) is actually a combination of complex tasks that have different timelines and use different teams to collate the information.
The job of a taxonomist is to bring all these elements together in one place, to define how the taxonomy should be presented, and to ensure that the underlying information is there for development teams and the business to use going forward.
Understanding the content
To gain an understanding of our content we need to look in detail at the following items;
Fig.2 - Content Audit
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Industry Taxonomies - There are several taxonomies that are available for public use and do form a good basis for a quick way to produce a straw taxonomy (a draft). If there are some available, use them to help classify your content as the terms used here will probably have been reviewed and tested.
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Search analytics - A great way to see how your users think of your content is to check on the terms that they search on. This is a very revealing way to understand the terms used to access areas on your site.
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Social bookmark sites - some sites, such as del.icio.us, show clouds of user generated tags around industry labels. This is a good way of seeing if what the users' say they want tallies with what they actually use in terms of categorising the site's content. User generated tags have a role to play in formulating the holistic taxonomy strategy (that incorporates the user, business and content)
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Content card sorts - by showing the content types and the category labels, this type of closed card sort can help in defining what a user expects to see behind certain labels. Open card sorts are another approach that allows the user to also decide the categories to rationalise a website's content.
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Content mapping or clustering - this technique involves pooling groups of content into areas and seeing what emerges. They are likely to be along a theme, or ideally a node in the taxonomy. This type of content mapping is an important element of building a new taxonomy. This is where industry experts can help in giving a feel for content and how this should be reflected in the taxonomy and eventually in the visual design.
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Web analytics overlays - Most web metric programs have the facility to see the clicks that users are making whilst interacting with the site. By doing this, we have an idea of how they perceive navigation elements and their labels. This is vitally important when we come to designing a navigation scheme that reflects the taxonomy.
Understanding the users
Outside the immediate business context, you need to rely on user studies. Personas can be a great snapshot of how different user groups think of the content they consume and how they interact with it. The best form of research is ethnographic studies ,but even an online card sort with a select user group is a great way to harness the collective view of the user.
By placing the persona at the heart of the taxonomy formulation, you are ensuring a level of user centred focus that becomes the fabric of the website - its structure. Looking at qualitative and quantitive data will yield a solid grounding for the taxonomy.
Fig.3 - Analytics form a good basis to understand actual user behaviour
To gain an understanding of our users we need to look in detail at the following items:
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User behaviour - from looking at web analytics we can see patterns of behaviour that emerge from the user's interactions with the site. An even better way is to study users for a fixed time period and see how they interact with the website and how they navigate to areas within the taxonomy.
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Depth Interviews, online surveys - by asking questions around the taxonomy and how the site classifies its content, we can gain a true understanding of how users think content should be organised.
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Task analysis and customer activity cycles - also give us clues about the user's working life and how the website fits within their mental model of how our content should be organised. This is from more of a task flow analysis view than a personal view, but is very useful to understand the business context in which they are working.
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Personas - a highly memorable collation of the user's specific needs around a fictional character that is based on factual research. Personas can symbolise how different user groups perceive the content that we are trying to organise. In short, all the findings of the elements above help build this definition.
Gaining understanding from the business context
Unlike the users and the content, the business context is a really hard area to define with rigid tools and techniques. The problem is that each context is likely to be affected by a pervading business culture that will have a direct effect on the quality of work that will be produced.
To gain buy-in from key people requires a charm offensive and a very good elevator pitch that encapsulates the vision of the site in simple, easy to understand language. It is this vision statement that will underpin your discussions about the site and its taxonomy. Hopefully, before you embark upon this exercise, there will already be some work done, detailed below...
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Proposition Plan - a detailed statement that has been circulated and approved helps no end in defining the scope of the project and how far the taxonomy needs to reach. This gives you some good parameters to work to.
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Website Strategy - this is an overarching document that talks of how the site will develop over time. The importance to the taxonomy here is that it will give you an idea of how the taxonomy will need to adapt to change as the strategy comes into reality as time passes. To produce an adaptable taxonomy is a goal that should be achieved during the design process.
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Competitor Analysis - One of the first things to gauge how the taxonomy should look is to see how the competitors organise their content. If it is good or bad, pick up on mistakes and successes.
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Content Road Map - An extension of the website strategy, this is the actual editorial content that will be produced to align with the vision of where the site needs to be directed in the future.
Fig.4 - Concept model diagram
It is important to note that where taxonomy design struggles is often where stakeholders do not fully understand, or agree with, the strategy of the site moving forward. The best taxonomy design can often be ruined by a lack of engagement from key people on the team. Without the input of all available knowledge, it is likely that something will be missed and the structure will be faulty.
In Part Two: creating, testing and launching the taxonomy.......
James Kelway worked for Reed Elsevier for over 8 years in a variety of roles. While working as a digital art director, he studied for a Masters degree in Design Practice, specializing in UCD techniques. After qualifying, he became an information architect and was responsible for the formulation of the business' information architecture strategy, its implementation among several teams and the redesign of several major industry websites.
Recently, James has moved to Copenhagen and works as an IA responsible for methodology and new projects. On his blog, User Pathways, James records his findings, as well as developments in information architecture, interaction design and user experience.
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