The Secret Sauce to Information Architecture

1. Perfecting Information Architecture (IA):
Exposing the Secret Sauce for Success
Jill Hannemann, Practice Director for SharePoint Advisory
Services
Portal Solutions
February 9, 2015 1

2. Jill Hannemann
@JHCherryBlossom
jhannemann@portalsolutions.net
Editor,
Digital
Workplace
Today
Director of
Advisory
Services
10+ years in Knowledge
Management
SharePoint expertise: information
architecture, records management,
content migration, document
management
Culinary project:
It’s soup and chili season!
About me
2

3. About Portal Solutions
We deliver Digital Workplace
Products and Solutions that
help organizations share
what they know and find
what they need by
connecting people, data, and
content.
3

4. What are we going to talk about today?
1. Information Architecture Challenges
2. Secret Sauce for Successful Information
Architecture
3. Information Architecture Best Practices
• Metadata Case Study
4

5. IA CHALLENGES
5

6. “Search doesn’t work!”
“I can’t find what I’m looking for!”
6

7. Garbage in… Garbage out… 7

8. Disparate databases, applications and file shares. 8

9. People try to develop their own folder structures. A folder-based
organization doesn’t scale. 9

10. To find content online we need to be speaking the same language. And
that language is called Taxonomy and Metadata. 10

11. Some of the facts…
• Unstructured content = 80% or more of all content
• Need to add structure to make it useful
• Information is about meaning, semantics
• Search is about semantics, not technology
• Can’t Google do it?
• Link Algorithm – human act of meaning
• Doesn’t work in enterprise
• 1,000’s of editors adding meaning
• New technology makes it possible – Text Analytics
11

12. Secret Sauce for Successful IA
12

13. 13

14. What is Metadata? Supermarket Example
METADATA FIELD SAMPLE VALUES
Departments
(Product Category)
Bakery
- Cakes
- Breads
Frozen Food
- Deserts
- Frozen Meals
- Vegetables
Meat & Poultry
- Beef
- Chicken
Produce
- Fruits
- Vegetables
…
Product Brand Lean Cuisine
Oscar Mayer
Quaker
Thomas
…
Price $10
$20
$30
…
14

15. Metadata Example – Shoes Store
15

16. Metadata Applied to Documents
16
Audience
• Internal
• Executives
• Managers
• External
• Suppliers
• Customers
• Partners
Metadata
Topics
• Employee Services
• Compensation
• Retirement
• Insurance
• Further Education
• Support Services
• Infrastructure
• Supplies
• Products and Services
• Finance and Budget
Title
Author
Department
Audience
Topic

17. Metadata per Document Type
Presentations
Forms
Policies
Title
Sub-header
Presenter's Name
Presenter's Title
Date
Classification
Title
Name
Date
Job Title
Department #
Entity
Classification
Title
Policy Number
Department
Last Updated
Classification
METADATA
17

18. IA DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY
• Information Architecture (IA)
Secret Sauce for Successful IA
(Navigation, Search, Taxonomy, and Metadata)
Key Ingredients
18

19. IA’s Key Ingredients
Key Ingredients
• Taxonomy and Metadata:
• End user focus
• Think creatively when designing it
• Use simple words based on the organization’s language
• Site Navigation:
• A flatter taxonomy structure with maximum 3 levels
deep
• At least 5 sub-categories per category, but no more than
15
• Avoid overlap between content or duplication of
content
• Search:
• Flexible and dynamic search approach that allows easy
sort and filter based on metadata
• Document Management:
• Content types and classification
• Filtering, searching within libraries and lists
19

20. IA in SharePoint
• What’s practical? What should you build?
20

21. Mapping IA to SharePoint elements
21

22. Navigation/Content Types
• Navigation should be
thoughtfully
determined
• Content types can
create consistency
with…
• Metadata
• Templates
• Presentation layer
22

23. Search/Navigation
• Leveraging metadata
tags to refine results
• Assign to…
• Pages
• Documents/Files
• List items
23

24. Columns
24
• Document library
• Lists
• Filtering
• Sorting
• Group By

25. Building IA: Where to start
• Assessing your needs
• Redesigning…
• Site map?
• Navigation?
• Department site?
• Team site?
• Library/List?
• Audience size will correlate with
your approach
25
Site Map/Nav
Sites
Libraries
Level of Complexity

26. Addressing Complexity
26
RecordTemporary
TypeofContent
Individual Team Enterprise
Audience
Type of Content
Temporary Record
Audience
Individual Team Enterprise

27. Authentication
The Importance of Content in your Company
27
RecordTemporary
TypeofContent
Instant Message
E-Mail
Social
Team SitesOnline Storage
Intranet
Document/Record Management
Individual Team Enterprise
Audience

28. For Complex IA…
Building Taxonomy and Metadata
28

29. Spice it up!
Defining the metadata, values
and taxonomy categories is like
adding the finer nuances to
your secret sauce
It’s what adds context to your
content
29

30. So, just create… a Mindmap of SharePoint IA
30

31. User Centered Design
31
Optimizing SharePoint to be designed around how users can, want, or need to
use it, rather than forcing them to change their behavior to accommodate it.

32. Starting Your Taxonomy Build-Out
Leverage shared drive folder names and filenames as source of terms
Good as source of terms, not as source of structure
32
Legacy nested folder hierarchy New faceted metadata
To gather and group similar documents
together
To refine and narrower a search by specific
criteria
Designed by person who is uploading and
storing documents for personal use
Designed to help all members of an
enterprise find documents
A document can go into only one folder A document can be assigned multiple
metadata terms
A folder can be located within only one
parent folder
A metadata term may display “under” more
than one metadata facet
May become quite deep e.g. 6-7 levels Not so deep, usually only 2-3 levels
Folder names at deeper levels can become
long and complex
Term names stay simple, since they are
intended to be used in combination

33. Document
Types
Proposals Contracts Reports
Document
Types
Proposals Contracts Desk
33

34. Finding the right tool for the job…
34

35. Card Sorting Exercise
Building, Testing, Validating Design
35

36. Why Card Sorting?
• Card Sorting is a UX research method that seeks to understand how
users mentally classify information and determine what labels best
summarize the contents of that classification.
• Card Sorting can be done to generate labels and categorization
structures, and it can be done to validate them. The best use of card
sorting is the former.

37. Card Sorting Exercise Types
• Open card sorting allows participants to create and name their own categories. Using the
open card sorting method allows you to see how participants mentally classify the cards and
what terms they use as categories.
• Closed card sorting allows you to set and name your categories. This helps you evaluate if
the category names you set provides an effective way of organizing content.
• Hybrid card sorting is a mix of the open and closed card sorting methods. You can set
predetermined categories, but if a participant cannot find a suitable category to sort a card,
you can allow participants to create their own category during the survey.
37

38. Variations on Running the Sort
• Moderated (Facilitated, or focus groups/workshop)
• Facilitator can ask questions
• Leverage a cross organizational group to elicit feedback
• Unmoderated (No context, or online survey)
• No context in the sort
• Users sort based on their interpretation of the cards and categories only
• These can mix and matched based on the project’s needs. The best
case would be to do a few moderated and the rest unmoderated.
38

39. Card Sorting Exercise Steps
1. Identify and label the cards (approx. 50).
39

40. Tips to Pick Cards for Card Sorting
• The card labels should be meaningful to the
participants.
• Never include only existing content. Use
your research and understanding of
business objectives to consider future
content.
• Don’t introduce bias in your cards by using
overly descriptive titles.
• Ensure your cards are exhaustive enough to
get a broad overview but not so exhaustive
that the card sort is tough to complete.
• Meet with the project team to validate your
cards.
• Never include stakeholders/project team in
your card sort with other users.
40

41. Card Sorting Exercise Steps
1. Identify and label the cards (approx. 50).
2. Ask users to sort the cards in the order that makes
sense to them.
41

42. Card Sorting Exercise Steps
1. Identify and label the cards (approx. 50).
2. Ask users to sort the cards in the order that makes
sense to them.
3. Once the results are in, analyze the data and
identify any similarities using visuals and statistics.
42

43. Card Sorting Exercise Steps
• The result? Well-defined content categories.
43

44. Document Taxonomy/Metadata in a Mindmap
44

45. Or Excel works too…
45

46. The Goal: Groupings, not Hierarchy
46

47. Online Card Sorting Tool
47

48. Online Card Sorting Tool
48

49. Online Card Sorting Tool – Results
49

50. Taxonomy Workshops and Focus Groups
• 1-2 days of guided discussions to define taxonomy, metadata, and related terms
consistently.
• Create a “Starter Taxonomy” and initial metadata strategy.
50

51. Taxonomy Workshops and Focus Groups
Target Audience
• Cross-organizational group
of subject matter experts
and project owners from key
business units
• Max. 12-15 attendees
51

52. Document Categorization Process
Note: Identify dependencies between Document Types and specific Metadata
Fields.
Identify Content Types
52

53. IA BEST PRACTICES
53

54. Best Practices for Information Architecture
Facilitate cross-
organizational taxonomy
sessions
Identify all possible
audiences
Refine and validate the
taxonomy through various
iterations
Implement a change
management strategy Have a clear plan to
build your site
54

55. Best Practices for Information Architecture
Gain Management
Support
Map Legacy Data to
New Taxonomies for
Content Migration
Communicate the
Evolving Nature of
Taxonomy
Identify Metadata for
Documents
Content Governance
55

56. Final Thoughts
• What are your company’s main Information Architecture needs?
• Are you or your colleagues struggling to find content in your
company’s Intranet?
• What card sorting methodology could you use in your organization to
help improve content categorization? Online card sort? A workshop?
56

57. Thank you!
Q&A?
Jill Hannemann
@JHCherryBlossom
jhannemann@portalsolutions.net
57

58. METADATA Case Study
58

59. Case Study
• 2,000-employee company in the health care industry, a
highly regulated field.
• Frequent records inspections from global regulatory
agencies.
59

60. Business Case Details
• Project Scope: Design and implement a pointer system in
SharePoint 2010 for multiple electronic and hard copy
document repositories related to different products.
• Project Timeframe
Requirements Design Implementation Support
Nov 2013 – Feb 2014 Feb 2014 – Aug 2014
60

61. Business Case
• Disparate databases applications, file shares
• Electronic and hard copy records
• Records search could take weeks or months!
The Challenge
• Short project timeframe (audit from a Regulatory
Agency)
• Limited Resources (SMEs)
The Project
Constraints
• Taxonomy/Metadata Workshops
• Metadata analysis from existing repositories
• SharePoint 2010 Best Practices
The Methodology
• SharePoint 2010 Records Search System
• Metadata, Managed Metadata, Content Types
• Advanced Search, Search Refiners
The Solution
61

62. Project Team
Project
Team
Portal
Solutions
PM and IA Lead
Development
Lead
Company
Healthcare
PM
6 Subject Matter
Experts (SMEs)
Technical
Support
Engineer
62

63. Project Scope
• SharePoint-based document records search system
• Central metadata-based source of document records
• A pointer system to multiple document repositories
Document Records
Search System
- Record Title
- Record Type
- Date
- Author
63

64. The System in Numbers
64

65. Search: Basic Search and Advanced Search
65

66. 14 Content Types
available to create New
Document Records
66

67. Text Fields
Managed Metadata
Fields
Calendar Fields
Drop-down
Fields
Various Types of Metadata Fields
*Mandatory Fields 67

68. Managed Metadata: Term store, Term Sets
and Terms
• Example: Document Types hierarchy and synonyms.
68

69. SharePoint 2010 Search Features
• List - Sort and Filter features
• List - Managed Metadata Navigation feature
• List - Key Filters feature
• Basic Search
• Advanced Search
• Refiners in the Search Results Page
69

70. Search: List - Sort and Filter features
• Example: Ability to sort the “Title” column in ascending or descending order, or to
filter by individual document title.
70

71. Search: List - Managed Metadata Navigation
• The Managed Metadata is configured to filter
two of the most important Managed Metadata
fields : Document Type and CTD Section.
71

72. Search: List - Key Filters feature
• Four Key Filters help users look
for content in the Document
Records list.
1. Document Approval Date
2. Document Effective Date
3. Document Type
4. Section Number
72

73. Search: Advanced Search
• Search for content based on specific metadata values (Properties).
Section Number
Document Type
FMC Code
Jurisdiction
Market
Molecule
Product Name
Receiving Site
Regions
Sending Site
Site Ownership
Test Methods
Trade Name
73

74. Search: Refiners in the Search Results Page
• Refiners assist users in finding the specific document records they are looking for
74