Semantic Clustering
for Nomenclature
Purposes
by Sean Howard

A very smart man
Matthew Milan: http://tinyurl.com/3nklu8

A very smart man
recently said,
“In the last five years, I can't identify a
single original method that has grown up
inside the IA field.”
“It's time to seriously invest in a new set of
tools, and we're going to need to build
some of them from scratch.”
Matthew Milan: http://tinyurl.com/3nklu8

which got me thinking
MEANING and how we struggle
about
RELATIONSHIPS
with defining
VALUE
that bring to a domain

or more specifically
NOMENCLATURE

Every UX job generally involves a
nomenclature review, refinement or
overhaul at some point or another
How do we come up with
our final recommendations?

I know a firm that hires a third party
semiotician to define the value and
meaning relationships for a project
A black box solution,
if you will
Image Source: Mr. Noded, http://flickr.com/photos/jrnoded/

The rest of us tend to use
brainstorm thesaurus card sort
content theft etc.
audit
Image Source: Jacob Bøtter, http://www.flickr.com/photos/jakecaptive/

not to mention a stiff drink
(or three)

and then we test, refine and repeat

What if there was a better way
to identify semantic relationships with
our actual audience?

What if there was a better way
more MEANINGFUL
to identify semantic relationships with
nomenclature
our actual audience?

What if we could build a map of meaning
and explore proximity by association
to better understand our audiences?
For more information:
Semantic Memory:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_memory
Priming:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priming_(psychology)

I give you: a semantic mapping tool

Here we see sample results in aggregate
showing potential meaningful relationships
held in common for one term
Term: Consumer
82
68
58
42
Marketing
34
Product
Person
Fallacy
Goods
This could be further segmented by a number of
other factors (demographic, psychographic, etc.)

Not everyone types at the same speed.
Let’s define the avg. time to enter a word*
from first keypress to last keypress as tkey
tkey is 1.34 seconds
* A word being defined by the act of the user pressing the submit button.

tthink can then be total time minus tkey
where tthink can then be used to define
those words that come quickest/easiest
tthink tkey
total time from presentation of word to submission
of word by the user
Note: deleting of the letters and starting over likely needs to be taken into account as well

We may want to segment clusters based on
a factor of tthink (those that came to your
audience quickest.)
Term: Consumer
82
< 1.25 sec
68 < 2.50 sec
58
> 2.50 sec
42
Marketing
34
Product
Person
Fallacy
Goods

Or alternatively, show words as nodes in
a network diagram where the length of the
line is the average speed to come up with
the word.
Product
Term: Consumer
Fallacy
Person
Goods
Marketing
There may also be value in the order in which words are entered.

This is about building a better understanding
of the language and meanings pertinent
to the stakeholders within a domain

I ran a simplified version of this
experiment with three friends

I ran a simplified version of this
experiment with three friends
money
hat
Financials
suit
market
bank
account

I ran a simplified version of this
experiment with three friends
measurements
charts
company
CFO
Financials
spreadsheets pale green
projections

I ran a simplified version of this
experiment with three friends
corporate
results
Financials
investing
annual
reports
brownies

Two of my subjects show signs of a more
personal relationship with “financials”

Two of my subjects show signs of a more
personal relationship with “financials”
One appears to relate stronger to financial
presentations

Two of my subjects show signs of a more
personal relationship with “financials”
One appears to relate stronger to financial
presentations
The terms “hat”, “pale green” and
“brownies” are some of the areas I
would be curious to explore further
Ann did mention being hungry during the experiment.

greater
INSIGHT

Enabling us to create better content,
define stronger navigation, and
better connect with our audience

Anyone want to build this? Go for it.
This work is licensed under the Creative
Commons Attribution 2.5 Canada License. To
view a copy of this license, visit
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/ca/
Questions or Comments?
Find me at: http://www.craphammer.ca/