Words have meaning. Words have context.
Taxonomists spend their time wrestling with words, categories, relationships, and meaning. In so doing, it immediately becomes clear that context is an essential part of the work.
When “Broken” Search is a Trailing Indicator of Deeper Issues
Often, after digging into projects it becomes clear that “search” is a trailing indicator of more systemic problems. Fixing or replacing a search engine is not always sufficient to address the underlying goals (even though it is necessary in some cases). “Search” projects often morph into knowledge management, content strategy, or information modeling initiatives…
Taxonomies and AI Chatbots
This blog post is adapted from a Presentation by Gary Carlson at Taxonomy Bootcamp, November 2018 Taxonomies, AI, and Chatbots: Connecting People With Information There is a natural relationship between AI chatbots and taxonomies—but how do they work together? More importantly, how can taxonomies/ontologies support best AI practices? Taxonomies and ontologies interact with, support, and …
Scalable Taxonomies
In working on enterprise taxonomy projects, the issue of scale always comes up. “Scale” is a word that gets tossed around a lot but what does it really mean for taxonomies? How can taxonomies scale? What do organizations need to think about when considering requirements for taxonomy scale? We’ve found that the best way to …
Taxonomy Workshop – Designing and Building Taxonomies for eCommerce and the Enterprise
Join the Factor team for this taxonomy that workshop geared to the taxonomy needs of enterprise scale taxonomies. We will cover the breadth of inputs needed to design taxonomies and then show how to translate these inputs into a durable and sustainable taxonomy. The workshop includes activities geared to provide experience with many aspects of the taxonomy design and building process.
Implementing Taxonomies and IA: Ensuring Success
So, you did all this work and built these fantastic taxonomies and navigation models. Aren’t you done yet? Not really. Like architectural or backcountry trip plans, the realities of the situation will require modifications and adjustments to the information architecture. The taxonomies, metadata, content models, and navigation that make up the IA will all be tested during implementation. …
Implementing Taxonomies and IA: Ensuring Success Read More »
Essential Assessments for Designing Enterprise Taxonomy
Designing a taxonomy is the process of defining its structure. It details how different relationships will be used, formatting of the labels, and the attributes that will be associated with each term and relationship. The design process is also the right time to consider the governance and maintenance procedures for the taxonomy along with the technical implementation considerations.
Beyond the labels: The right taxonomy for your project
At the end of the day, taxonomies are a means to an end and are rarely valuable on their own. They’re the bridge in the conversation between a business and its customers, an information system and its users.