What is a taxonomy and why do you need one?
We are all familiar with retail websites. If you want to buy a book, but aren’t sure what exactly you want to read, you might go to Barnes & Noble’s site and browse by genre, subgenre, and format. If you want to buy a dress, you might go to Belk’s site and narrow your choices to casual, mid-length, short-sleeve cotton dresses in a size 12. This ability to tailor your search (or browse) parameters to exactly what you need is part of what makes it possible to shop online. Imagine if you had to look at every single refrigerator sold by Home Depot to find one with all the features you want at the right price point?
Now think about the last time you visited a smaller, more niche store online. How easy was it to use? The last few years, I’ve been trying to shop smaller businesses. But I frequently find myself backing out of sites in frustration because I can’t find what I need. For example, there is a clothing store that I keep going back to. Their clothes are really cute, and they carry my size (in some styles). But while I can narrow my options by things like color and fabric, I can’t narrow by size. Crazy, right?I can only see the sizes by clicking on each individual item and opening the details page. I’ve never actually bought from them.
The background system that makes these sites work (or not work) is taxonomy, combined with metadata. Most people are familiar with metadata in the form of tagging (#vacationwear). But metadata can also be more functional things like size and price information. Once you have the metadata in place, the taxonomy makes the whole thing browseable. Take it one step further and add facets. Then you’ve got filters so you can browse to where you want to be, then narrow your options even more.
This combination - metadata and faceted taxonomy - is why you can browse your favorite clothing store until you get to the short-sleeve dresses in your size (taxonomy), narrow your search to only show what’s in stock (facets), and actually see only short sleeve dresses in your size that are in stock (metadata)!
What does all this mean for you? Well, if you are a small retailer, the connection is obvious. If you are losing conversions because people can’t find things on your site, you need a taxonomy! But taxonomies are useful for all kinds of businesses. Maybe you have an employee intranet, but no one can find anything on it. Or maybe you have external stakeholders that need to be able to access an ever-growing list of reports, manuals, research, financials, etc.
When you are small, and only have a handful of things that need finding (and/or a handful of people that need to do the finding), a simple shared drive can work (see my post on how to organize files on a shared drive). But as you (and your information world) grow, you want to make sure everyone can find and access what they need. That’s where the structure of a taxonomy becomes vital.
If you want to explore what a taxonomy can do for your business, contact Entrelac so we can discuss your needs and craft a solution.
