A Survey: Taxonomy Building Tools

Introduction Content Strategy Consultant Information Design Architecture Copy Business Writing Needs Library User Science Needs Page 2 © 2008 Avenue A | Razorfish, Inc. All rights reserved. Photo by Kyknoord

About This Survey This evaluation is about finding useful, usable tools that will help unlock the story that data has to tell. The solutions have evolved, and so have our problems. Page 3 © 2008 Avenue A | Razorfish, Inc. All rights reserved.

About This Survey Looking for tools to • Develop taxonomy, controlled vocabulary, and metadata relationships • Prototype data so that designers can create meaningful interactive experiences • Provide non-technical business users with a way to visualize and verify data Page 4 © 2008 Avenue A | Razorfish, Inc. All rights reserved.

History: EW.com [1999] The Scenario •Multiple articles on the same movie •Predictable related data, such as: lead performers, release date, director, etc. Page 9 © 2008 Avenue A | Razorfish, Inc. All rights reserved.

History: EW.com [1999] Our Needs •Standardize keywords •Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace •Star Wars - Episode I: The Phantom Menace •Star Wars: The Phantom Menace •Apply related data with a single selection •Update once, publish to many pages •Expose rich data relationships Page 10 © 2008 Avenue A | Razorfish, Inc. All rights reserved.

History: EW.com [2000] Our Solution: Category Tool •Structured category paths: •Movie > Product > Men in Black •Person > Individual > Will Smith •Relationship types: •Performance, lead •Director •Release Date Page 12 © 2008 Avenue A | Razorfish, Inc. All rights reserved.

History: EW.com [2000] Our Solution: Category Tool •Differentiation: • Movie > TheGreen Mile • Book > The Green Mile • Movie > Cats & Dogs • Movie > The Truth About Cats & Dogs Page 14 © 2008 Avenue A | Razorfish, Inc. All rights reserved.

History: TOPICS [2003] The Next Generation Requirements •Scalable •Based on industry standard formats •Support all existing data needs •Support data needs that the old system couldn’t handle •Reliable Page 15 © 2008 Avenue A | Razorfish, Inc. All rights reserved.

History: TOPICS [2005] Our Solution – Live! •Pilot system rolled out in early 2005 •Three new sites launched in 6 weeks Success? •Sort of… Page 17 © 2008 Avenue A | Razorfish, Inc. All rights reserved.

History: TOPICS [2005] Further problems •Awkward integration with an older CMS •New data not published in real time •We had to provide all the tool support •The editors found it complicated to use Page 18 © 2008 Avenue A | Razorfish, Inc. All rights reserved.

Current needs [2007] New projects, familiar problems: •Taxonomy, metadata, controlled vocabulary, and relationships •Envision how this data will translate into a website Page 21 © 2008 Avenue A | Razorfish, Inc. All rights reserved.

A recent problem set [2008] A colleague posed this problem: •Articles related to ideas, people, organizations •Each concept is related to other articles •Design should demonstrate relationships •We need to expose the relationships so we can solve the design problems Page 22 © 2008 Avenue A | Razorfish, Inc. All rights reserved.

A recent problem set [2008] Key Question How do we… •explore the nature and scope of these relationships… •and design a meaningful visualization of the data landscape… •before we’ve chosen and implemented a data management solution? Page 23 © 2008 Avenue A | Razorfish, Inc. All rights reserved.

Recap • 1999 – Need Metadata! • 2000 – Relational Database Categories • 2003 – Pushed to its limits • 2004 – RDF/OWL homegrown tool • 2005 – Launched several new sites but… the UI dooms it to failure • 2008 – Need to Expose, Understand, Prototype & Share Metadata! Page 24 © 2008 Avenue A | Razorfish, Inc. All rights reserved.

Test data Types of Confections Dietary Considerations Low Carb Candy Low Fat Hard candy Sugar-Free Soft candy Nut-Free Mints Kosher Vegan Gummi Gum Ingredients Chewing Gum Butterscotch Bubble Gum Caramel Chocolate Chocolate Fruit Chocolate Bars Milk Truffles Mint Dark Chocolate Nougat Nuts Milk Chocolate Peanut Butter White Chocolate Soy Fudge Yogurt Chocolate Covered Candy Products Ice Cream Reese’s Inside Out Peanut Butter Cups Pastries Kinder Surprise Marzipan Dark Chocolate Bar Brands White Chocolate Pistachio Truffle White Chocolate Mint Bar with Sprinkles Ferrero Milk Chocolate with Raspberry Filling Hershey’s Perugina Properties Ritter Sport hasCandyType - Candy Product > Type hasBrand - Candy Product > Brand Sabrina Evans Chocolatier hasDietaryConsideration - Candy Product > Dietary Consideration hasIngredient - Candy Product > Ingredient Page 28 © 2008 Avenue A | Razorfish, Inc. All rights reserved.

Thesaurus Tools Used to construct lists of hierarchical sets of data, employing a construction based on Broader Terms and Narrower Terms. MultiTes A.K.A. Semaphore Ontology Manger A.C.S TermTree WebChoir TCS-10 Page 29 © 2008 Avenue A | Razorfish, Inc. All rights reserved.

Thesaurus Tool: MultiTes • Create relationships to existing terms by typing– faster but potentially less accurate • Probably the easiest of these tools to use Page 32 © 2008 Avenue A | Razorfish, Inc. All rights reserved.

Semaphore Ontology Manager • Originally designed as a thesaurus tool, added capability to manage classes and relationships • Awkward UI requires more steps for simple tasks Page 33 © 2008 Avenue A | Razorfish, Inc. All rights reserved.

Drawbacks of Thesaurus Tools • Require an abstract understanding of thesaurus type relationships that doesn’t really contribute to the design process • Limited support for other relationships • Moving terms from one level to another tends to be difficult • Lack robust visualization options Page 36 © 2008 Avenue A | Razorfish, Inc. All rights reserved.

Brainstorming Tools Used to quickly map concepts and terms. More visual and easier to add, remove and rearrange things rapidly, while working. Mindjet MindManager Bubbl.us FreeMind Page 37 © 2008 Avenue A | Razorfish, Inc. All rights reserved.

Drawbacks of Brainstorming Tools • Not great for expressing non-hierarchical relationships • Becomes difficult to read when there are a large number of nodes Page 43 © 2008 Avenue A | Razorfish, Inc. All rights reserved.

Ontology Tools Used to capture metadata using semantic standards. More flexible and powerful in the types of relationships they can capture. SWOOP Altova SemanticWorks Protégé TopQuadrant TopBraid Composer Page 44 © 2008 Avenue A | Razorfish, Inc. All rights reserved.

Drawbacks of Ontology Tools • Required knowledge of the workings of RDF and OWL could be a barrier • Not enough of them have good, flexible visualization options Page 53 © 2008 Avenue A | Razorfish, Inc. All rights reserved.

Visualization Tools Used primarily for viewing and exploring data and relationships, not for creating or editing. RDF Gravity IBM ManyEyes OwlSight Wordmap Page 54 © 2008 Avenue A | Razorfish, Inc. All rights reserved.

Drawbacks of Visualization Tools • Data has to be created elsewhere and imported • Most are not quite flexible enough to show a wide range of data relationships Page 61 © 2008 Avenue A | Razorfish, Inc. All rights reserved.

Thanks To colleagues who shared examples, insights and feedback. And to flickr.com users who made their images available through Creative Commons: by Kyknoord Some rights reserved. by Lenore M. Edman, www.evilmadscientist.com Some rights reserved. by Kyle Flood Some rights reserved. by Craig Munro Some rights reserved. Page 64 © 2008 Avenue A | Razorfish, Inc. All rights reserved.

Thank You! Complete presentation is available at: http://blog.rachellovinger.com/stc08 More details on each tool discussed will be published in upcoming weeks at: http://blog.rachellovinger.com/metadata-tools/ Rachel Lovinger Rachel.Lovinger@avenuea-razorfish.com Page 66 © 2008 Avenue A | Razorfish, Inc. All rights reserved.

A Survey: Taxonomy Building Tools

by Rachel Lovinger on May 21, 2008

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