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Strategies LLCTaxonomy
Novemver 2, 2006 Copyright 2006 Taxonomy Strategies LLC. All rights reserved.
Testing Your Taxonomy
Ron Daniel, Jr.
2Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information
Testing Your Taxonomy
Your taxonomy will not be perfect or complete and will need to be modified based on changing content, user needs, and other practical considerations.
Developing a taxonomy incrementally requires measuring how well it is working in order to plan how to modify it.
In this session, you will learn qualitative and quantitative taxonomy testing methods including: Tagging representative content to see if it works and determining
how much content is good enough for validation. Card-sorting, use-based scenario testing, and focus groups to
determine if the taxonomy makes sense to your target audiences and to provide clues about how to fix it.
Benchmarks and metrics to evaluate usability test results, identify coverage gaps, and provide guidance for changes.
3Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information
Qualitative taxonomy testing methods
Method Process Who Requires Validation
Walk-thru Show & explain Taxonomist SME Team
Rough taxonomy
Approach Appropriateness to task
Walk-thru Check conformance to editorial rules
Taxonomist Draft taxonomy Editorial Rules
Consistent look and feel
Usability Testing
Contextual analysis (card sorting, scenario testing, etc.)
Users Rough taxonomy
Tasks & Answers
Tasks are completed successfully
Time to complete task is reduced
User Satisfaction
Survey Users Rough Taxonomy
UI Mockup Search
prototype
Reaction to taxonomy Reaction to new interface Reaction to search results
Tagging Samples
Tag sample content with taxonomy
Taxonomist Team Indexers
Sample content
Rough taxonomy (or better)
Content ‘fit’ Fills out content inventory Training materials for people &
algorithms Basis for quantitative methods
4Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information
Walk-through method—Show & explain
ABC Computers.com
AllBusinessEmployeeEducationGaming Enthusiast
HomeInvestorJob SeekerMediaPartnerShopper
First TimeExperiencedAdvanced
Supplier
Audience
AllHome & Home Office
GamingGovernment, Education & Healthcare
Medium & Large Business
Small Business
Line of Business
AllAsia-PacificCanadaEMEAJapanLatin America & Caribbean
United States
Region-Country
DesktopsMP3 PlayersMonitorsNetworkingNotebooksPrintersProjectorsServersServicesStorageTelevisionsOther Brands
Product Family
AwardCase StudyContract & Warranty
DemoMagazineNews & EventProduct Information
ServicesSolutionSpecificationTechnical NoteToolTrainingWhite PaperOther Content Type
Content Type
Business & Finance
Interpersonal Development
IT Professionals Technical Training
IT Professionals Training & Certification
PC ProductivityPersonal Computing Proficiency
Competency Industry
Banking & Finance
Communica-tions
E-BusinessEducationGovernmentHealthcareHospitalityManufacturingPetro-chemocals
Retail / Wholesale
TechnologyTransportationOther Industries
Service
Assessment, Design & Implementation
DeploymentEnterprise Support
Client Support
Managed Lifecycle
Asset Recovery & Recycling
Training
5Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information
Walk-through method— Editorial rules consistency check
AbbreviationsAmpersandsCapitalizationGeneral…, More…, Other…Languages & character setsLength limitsMultiple parentsPlural vs. singular formScope notesSerial commaSources of termsSpacesSynonyms & acronymsTerm order (Alphabetic or …)Term label order (Direct vs. inverted)…
Rule Name Editorial Rule
Abbreviations Abbreviations, other than colloquial terms and acronyms, shall not be used in term labels.Example: Public InformationNOT: Public Info.
Ampersands The ampersand [&] character shall be used instead of the word ‘and’. Example: Licensing & ComplianceNOT: Licensing and Compliance
Capitalization Title case capitalization shall be used. Example: Customer ServiceNOT: CUSTOMER SERVICENOT: Customer serviceNOT: customer service
General…, More…, Other…
The term labels “General…”, “More…”, and “Other…” shall be used for categories which contain content items that are not further classifiable. Example: “Other Property”
“Other Services”“General Information”“General Audience”
… …
6Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information
For alpha test of a grocery site 15 Testers put each of 71 best-
selling product types into one of 10 pre-defined categories
Categories where fewer than 14 of 15 testers put product into same category were flagged
% of Testers
Cumulative % of Products
With Poly-Hierarchy
15/15 54% 69%
14/15 70% 83%
13/15 77% 93%
12/15 83% 100%
11/15 85% 100%
<11/15 100% 100%
“Cocoa Drinks – Powder” is best categorized in both
“Beverages” and “Grocery”.
How to improve? Allow products in multiple categories. (Results are for
minimum size = 4 votes)
6Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information
Usability Testing Method: Closed Card Sort
7Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information
Usability testing method—Task-based card sorting (1) 15 representative questions were selected
Perspective of various organizational units Most frequent website searches Most frequently accessed website content Correct answers to the questions were agreed in advance by team.
15 users were tested Did not work for the organization Represented target audiences
Testers were asked “where would you look for …” “under which facet… Topic, Commodity, or Geography?” Then, “… under which category?” Then, “…under which sub-category?” Tester choices were recorded
Testers were asked to “think aloud” Notes were taken on what they said
Pre- and post questions were asked Tester answers were recorded
8Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information
Usability testing method—Task-based card sorting (2)
3. What is the average farm income level in
your state?
1. Topics2. Commodities3. Geographic Coverage
1. Topics1.1 Agricultural Economy1.2 Agriculture-Related
Policy1.3 Diet, Health & Safety1.4 Farm Financial
Conditions1.5 Farm Practices &
Management1.6 Food & Agricultural
Industries1.7 Food & Nutrition
Assistance1.8 Natural Resources &
Environment1.9 Rural Economy1.10 Trade & International
Markets
1.4 Farm Financial Conditions
1.4.1 Costs of Production1.4.2 Commodity Outlook1.4.3 Farm Financial
Management & Performance
1.4.4 Farm Income1.4.5 Farm Household
Financial Well-being1.4.6 Lenders & Financial
Markets1.4.7 Taxes
9Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information
Analysis of task-based cardsorting (1)
Find-it Tasks User 1 User 2 User 3 User 4 User 5
1. Cotton Cotton Cotton Asia Cotton Cotton
2. Mad cow Cattle Food Safety Cattle Cattle Cattle
3. Farm income Farm Income Farm Income US States Farm Income Farm Income
4. Fast foodFood
ConsumptionDiet Quality &
NutritionFood
ExpendituresDiet Quality &
NutritionDiet Quality &
Nutrition
5. WIC WIC Program WIC Program WIC Program WIC Program WIC Program
6. GE Corn Corn Corn Corn Corn Corn
7. Foodborne illnessFoodborne
DiseaseFoodborne
DiseaseConsumer Food
SafetyFoodborne
DiseaseFoodborne
Disease
8. Food costs Food Prices Market Structure Market AnalysisFood
ExpendituresRetailing &
Wholesaling
9. Tobacco Tobacco Tobacco Tobacco Tobacco Tobacco
10. Small Farms Farm Structure Farm Structure Farm Structure Farm Structure Farm Structure
11. Traceability Food System Labeling PolicyFood Safety Innovations
Food Safety Policy Food Prices
12. Hunger Food Security Food Security Food Security Food Security Food Security
13. Trade balanceCommodity
TradeTrade & Intl
MarketsCommodity
Trade Market AnalysisCommodity
Trade
14. ConservationsCropping Practices
Conservation Policy
Conservation Policy
Conservation Policy
Conservation Policy
15. Trade restrictions Trade PolicyFood Safety &
Trade WTO Market AnalysisCommodity
Trade
10Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information
Analysis of task-based cardsorting (2)
In 80% of the trials users looked for information under the categories that we expected them to look for it.
Breaking-up topics into facets makes it easier to find information, especially information related to commodities.
11Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information
Analysis of task-based card sorting (3)
Test Questions%
Correct%
Agree
1. Cotton 91% 82%
2. Mad cow 73% 64%
3. Farm income 100% 55%
4. Fast food 91% 73%
5. WIC 100% 100%
6. GE corn 100% 100%
7. Foodborne illness 82% 82%
8. Food costs 55% 27%
9. Tobacco 100% 100%
10. Small farms 91% 91%
11. Traceability 36% 18%
12. Hunger 100% 73%
13. Trade balance 36% 64%
14. Conservation 91% 91%
15. Trade restrictions 55% 36%
Possible change required.
Change required.
Possible error in categorization of this question because 64% thought the answer should be “Commodity Trade.”
On these trials, only 50% looked in the right category, & only 27-36% agreed on the category.
Policy of “Traceability” needs to be clarified. Use quasi-synonyms.
12Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information
User satisfaction method—Card Sort Questionnaire (1)
Was it easy, medium or difficult to choose the appropriate Topic?
Easy Medium Difficult
Was it easy, medium or difficult to choose the appropriate Commodity?
Easy Medium Difficult
Was it easy, medium or difficult to choose the appropriate Geographic Coverage?
Easy Medium Difficult
13Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information
User satisfaction method—Card Sort Questionnaire (2)
-
0.50
1.00
1.50
2.00
Topic Commodity Geography
Facet
Ea
sy
-
->
Dif
fic
ult
EasierMore Difficult
14Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information
Task-Based Card Sorting “Bakeoff”
Goal:Compare two different sets of headings – “Blue” and “Orange”
Method:Scenarios written for 8 general tasks.15 users used one set of headings, then the other, to accomplish the task.Users were surveyed on satisfaction after each task, then again at the end.Be aware of test design and be sure to counterbalance the order in which people see the different schemes!
This is easier with an even number of participants.
Task Both Blue Orange T-Test
Improve Processes with New Technology 6.90 8.80 5.00 0.06
Get Email Remotely 6.20 5.40 7.00 0.26
Look Up Features/Model Information 7.70 8.40 7.00 0.23
Research a Product 6.90 8.20 5.60 0.28
Compare Product Features 6.10 7.00 5.20 0.19
Try out a Trial Copy 8.90 8.40 9.40 0.14
Choose Secure Product 6.90 6.80 7.00 0.93
Choose Software I Already Know 6.10 6.20 6.00 0.95
15Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information
Strengths and Weaknesses of Task-BasedCard Sorts
A task-based card sort is a test of the navigation headings, without additional context from the viewed pages. Due to the low-fidelity interface, it is easy to create and conduct. As a pure navigation test, it provides concentrated information
about navigation alone. This makes it particularly appropriate for comparing the two navigation
schemes. It provides concentrated information about the wording of headings
and spotlights any confusion they may cause. A tightly focused method to gather this type of information. These appear in the qualitative analysis more than in the quantitative.
Due to the lack of context, it is a difficult test of navigation. Due to the lack of content, users will have limited confidence that
they have reached the right spot. This will be reflected in lower satisfaction scores than for the fully-
implemented navigation.
16Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information
User interface survey— Which search UI is ‘better’? Criteria
User satisfactionSuccess completing tasksConfidence in resultsFewer dead ends
MethodologyDesign tasks from specific to generalTime performanceCalculate success ratesSurvey subjective criteriaPay attention to survey hygiene:
Participant selectionCounterbalancingT-scores
Source: Yee, Swearingen, Li, & Hearst
17Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information
User interface survey — Results (1)
Which Interface would you rather use for these tasks?
Google-like Baseline
Faceted Category
Find images of roses 15 16
Find all works from a certain period 2 30
Find pictures by 2 artists in the same media 1 29
…
Overall assessment:Google-like
BaselineFaceted
Category
More useful for your usual tasks 4 28
Easiest to use 8 23
Most flexible 6 24
More likely to result in dead-ends 28 3
Helped you learn more 1 31
Overall preference 2 29
…
Source: Yee, Swearingen, Li, & Hearst
18Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information
User interface survey — Results (2)
6.06.7
4.7 4.6
5.8 5.56.0
4.0
7.26.3
3.5
7.7 7.4 7.8
4.8
7.6
0123456789
Faceted Category
Google-like Baseline
Source: Yee, Swearingen, Li, & Hearst
19Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information
Tagging samples—How many items?
GoalNumber of
Items Criteria
Illustrate metadata schema 1-3 Random (excluding junk)
Develop training documentation 10-20 Show typical & unusual cases
Qualitative test of small vocabulary (<100 categories)
25-50 Random (excluding junk)
Quantitative test of vocabularies *
3-10X number of categories
Use computer-assisted methods when more than 10-20 categories. Pre-existing metadata is the most meaningful.
* Quantitative methods require large amounts of tagged content. This requires specialists, or software, to do tagging. Results may be very different than how “real” users would categorize content.
20Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information
Tagging samples—Manually tagged metadata sample
Attribute Values
Title Jupiter’s Ring System
URL http://ringmaster.arc.nasa.gov/jupiter/
Description Overview of the Jupiter ring system. Many images, animations and references are included for both the scientist and the public.
Content Types Web Sites; Animations; Images; Reference Sources
Audiences Educators; Students
Organizations Ames Research Center
Missions & Projects Voyager; Galileo; Cassini; Hubble Space Telescope
Locations Jupiter
Business Functions Scientific and Technical Information
Disciplines Planetary and Lunar Science
Time Period 1979-1999
21Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information
Tagging samples— Spreadsheet for tagging 10’s-100’s of items
1) Clickable URLs for sample content
2) Review small sample and describe
3) Drop-down for tagging (including ‘Other’ entry for the unexpected
4) Flag questions
22Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information
Rough Bulk Tagging—Facet Demo (1)
Collections: 4 content sources NTRS, SIRTF, Webb, Lessons Learned
Taxonomy Converted MultiTes format into RDF for Seamark
Metadata Converted from existing metadata on web pages, or Created using simple automatic classifier (string matching with
terms & synonyms) 250k items, ~12 metadata fields, 1.5 weeks effort
OOTB Seamark user interface, plus logo
23Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information
Rough Bulk Tagging— OOTB Facet Demo (2)
24Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information
Quantitative Method:How evenly does it divide the content?
Documents do not distribute uniformly across categories
Zipf (1/x) distribution is expected behavior
80/20 rule in action (actually 70/20 rule)
Measured v Expected Distribution of Top 10 Content Types in Library of Congress Database
0
50,000
100,000
150,000
200,000
250,000
300,000
350,000
Congre
sses
Biogra
phy
Period
icals
Map
s
Fiction
Exhib
itions
Juve
nile l
itera
ture
Bibliog
raph
y
Statis
tics
Top 10 Content Types
Nu
mb
er o
f R
eco
rds
Leading candidate for splitting
Leading candidates for merging
25Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information
Quantitative Method:How evenly does it divide the content? (2)
Methodology: 115 randomly selected URLs from corporate intranet search index were manually categorized. Inaccessible files and ‘junk’ were removed.
Results: Slightly more uniform than Zipf distribution. Above the curve is better than expected.
Measured v Expected Intranet Content Type Distribution
0
5
10
15
20
25
Peo
ple,
Gro
ups
& P
lace
s
New
s &
Eve
nts
Man
uals
&Le
arni
ngM
ater
ials
Ope
ratio
ns &
Inte
rnal
Com
mun
icat
ions
Mar
ketin
g &
Sal
es
Reg
ulat
ions
,P
olic
ies,
Pro
cedu
res
&T
empl
ates
Pap
ers
&P
rese
ntat
ions
Oth
er &
Unc
lass
ified
Pro
gram
s,P
ropo
sals
, P
lans
& S
ched
ules
Content Type
# D
ocu
men
ts
26Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information
Quantitative Method - How does taxonomy “shape” match that of content? Background:
Hierarchical taxonomies allow comparison of “fit” between content and taxonomy areas
Methodology:25,380 resources tagged with taxonomy of 179 terms. (Avg. of 2 terms per resource)Counts of terms and documents summed within taxonomy hierarchy
Results:Roughly Zipf distributed (top 20 terms: 79%; top 30 terms: 87%)Mismatches between term% and document% flagged
Term Group%
Terms%
Docs
Administrators 7.8 15.8
Community Groups 2.8 1.8
Counselors 3.4 1.4
Federal Funds Recipients and Applicants
9.5 34.4
Librarians 2.8 1.1
News Media 0.6 3.1
Other 7.3 2.0
Parents and Families 2.8 6.0
Policymakers 4.5 11.5
Researchers 2.2 3.6
School Support Staff 2.2 0.2
Student Financial Aid Providers
1.7 0.7
Students 27.4 7.0
Teachers 25.1 11.4
Source: Courtesy Keith Stubbs, US. Dept. of Ed.
27Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information
Conclusion
Simple walkthroughs are only the start of how to test a taxonomy.
Tagging modest amounts of content, and usability tests such as task-based card sorts, provide strong information about problems within the taxonomy. Caveat: They may tell you which headings need to be changed,
they won’t tell you what they should be changed to.
Taxonomy changes do not stand alone Search system improvements Navigation improvements Content improvements Process improvements
Strategies LLCTaxonomy
Novemver 2, 2006 Copyright 2006 Taxonomy Strategies LLC. All rights reserved.
Questions?Ron Daniel, [email protected]
http://ww.taxonomystrategies.com
29Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information
Bibliography
K. Yee, K. Swearingen, K. Li, M. Hearst. "Searching and organizing: Faceted metadata for image search and browsing." Proceedings of the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (April 2003) http://bailando.sims.berkeley.edu/papers/flamenco-chi03.pdf
R. Daniel and J. Busch. "Benchmarking Your Search Function: A Maturity Model.” http://www.taxonomystrategies.com/presentations/maturity-2005-05-17%28as-presented%29.ppt
Donna Maurer, “Card-Based Classification Evaluation”, Boxes and Arrows, April 7, 2003. http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/card_based_classification_evaluation