Taxonomy Development: Lessons from a Librarian

1. Taxonomy Development:Lessons from a Librarian Kate Wilson NetDexterity July 12, 2014

2. A bit about me… Hi, I’m Kate Wilson – Former librarian, current IT nerd. • Graduate of the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Information (iSchool) • Information Management consultant for NetDexterity (Not sure how I got here from Music Librarian, but thrilled that I did!)

3. What I do • Information Management Consultant • Document management, records management, taxonomy, navigation, metadata, usability, design, testing… • Set people up to find what they need, when they need it! • About NetDexterity • Toronto-based Microsoft Partner • Deliver Enterprise Information Management solutions, mainly on apps

4. The Project • The Client • Public library system for a large Canadian city • About2,000 end users across about 80 branches • Existing intranet (html) and series of shared drives • The Challenge • Implement SharePoint 2013 • Very tight timeline and budget

5. The Goal Develop a Taxonomy • A hierarchical representation of the organization’s knowledge domain. • From the taxonomy we would develop: • Site architecture • Metadata schema • Navigation Mammals Fish Reptiles Challenge: Produce a high-quality product within a limited amount of time. Pets Goldfish Dogs Cats Bunnies Lizards Snakes

6. So…where do I start?

9. Interviews • Talk to individual users and stakeholders and learn what content they work with, how best to organize it, and what site areas they’d like to see. • Pros • Stakeholder involvement means better buy-in to the end product • Cons • Time consuming • Output not hierarchical

10. Content Inventories • Create a spreadsheet containing all of the pages in the organization’s existing intranet and/or shared drive. • Pros • Good way to assess all existing content • Hierarchical representation • Cons • Doesn’t take into account new areas the organization may need • Doesn’t really involve the client

11. Sketchboarding • Get stakeholders and subject matter experts together and ask them to collaborate on a potential site architecture and workflows. • Pros • Collaborative, and some people really like working on paper • Cons • Paper is hard to share and doesn’t lend itself to easy iterations • Once the sketchboard is complete, it has to be transcribed into another format to be useful.

12. Card Sorting • Each business or knowledge area is written on a separate index card. End users are recruited and asked to group ‘like’ things together into a hierarchy. • Pros • Organizes content into a hierarchy, which is the outcome we wanted • Get a sense for how users think • Cons • Users aren’t coming up with the cards themselves – are they the right cards?

13. Conclusion • Combine the best elements of all methodologies into a workshop: • Involve the client to gain buy-in • Collaborative and iterative • Output is hierarchical • Considers existing content and future growth

14. My Approach

15. Workshop Concept • A bottom-up approach to a function-oriented taxonomy. 1 2 3 ANALYZE COLLECT ORGANIZE • Gather information/ content types • Map themes and topics hierarchically • Identify broader themes and topics

16. Participants • The workshop would consist of: Stakeholders representative of different business areas. End users and/or content owners from each business area (Some overlap between the two groups)

17. Preparation Two weeks before workshop: • Invitations sent to Project Team and Subject Matter Experts • Background material provided to participants • Intro slide deck about what is a taxonomy, why we are creating one, and the general outline of the workshop • Participants assigned homework • Asked to think about what kinds of information they work with and bring a list to the workshop

18. Preparation How I Prepared • Prior to the workshop, I created a content inventory of their shared drives and intranet website • This information was mainly to keep in my ‘back pocket’ I like to use Xmind

19. Workshop(Approximately 3 hours)

20. Workshop Introduction ~30 minutes • Began with quick introductions – first myself, then around the table • Next, took the participants through the introductory slides • Invite questions from participants

21. Workshop 1. Collect ~30 minutes • Asked participants to write on sticky notes the kind of information they interact with on a day-to-day basis, then put the sticky notes on the wall. • This step was the quickest because the participants had been asked to come up with their list in advance. • Gather information/ content types

22. Workshop 2. Analyze ~45 minutes • Asked participants to group related information together under subject headings, or topics/themes. • The themes generally reflected how the information was used (function) • As group came up with headings I recorded them in XMind • Identify broader themes and topics

23. Workshop 3. Organize ~60 minutes • Asked participants to arrange topics and themes into hierarchical groupings. • Participants found it difficult not to place the themes into groups based on ownership – wanted to recreate their org chart. • This step done on XMind and projected from my laptop. (Easier to move sections around.) • Map themes and topics hierarchically

24. Workshop Output

25. After the Workshop

26. Finalizing the Taxonomy • Workshop provided the tools for taxonomy development • Workshop participants met weekly for an hour to discuss and finalize taxonomy • Later, the meetings became about site structure, metadata, and navigation. • I attended each weekly meeting to provide guidance and oversight to the process

27. Lessons Learned Biggest challenge • Participants intuitively seem to want to group information by content owner. What went well • ‘Back pocket’ inventory of existing intranet proved useful. • Client extremely satisfied with the result – high quality taxonomy created in weeks • Cost effective – consultant hours limited to prep work, workshop, and weekly check-ins

28. Lessons Learned Success factors • Make sure that if a participant can’t make it, they send someone to fill in. • Otherwise the ‘voice’ of a user group may be missing • Bring a note-taker to capture comments and ideas from participants, and to be an extra set of hands.

29. Thank You! Questions? Kate.Wilson@NetDexterity.com Twitter: @TaxonomyNinja

30. Thanks to our sponsors!

31. Connect. Collaborate. Share. SharePoint Saturday Toronto http://spbuzz.it/spstoyam Toronto SharePoint Users Group http://www.meetup.com/TorontoSPUG/ Toronto SharePoint Business Users Group http://www.meetup.com/TSPBUG/

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