Methods

Purpose-Driven Taxonomy Design

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A purpose-driven taxonomy is designed to meet a clearly defined set of goals and use cases. This sounds obvious, but it's a step many organizations gloss over—often with frustratingly mixed outcomes as a result. In this article, I'll discuss a process I use for selecting terms, creating structure, and vetting design approaches on both small and large scale taxonomy projects. I'll also offer advice on where LLMs do—and don't—fit into a purpose-driven taxonomy design workflow.

AI Supported Taxonomy Term Generation

Diamond patterned wire fence with small circular metal tags printed with names hanging from each vertice

Underneath the hype and hyperbole of "AI" capabilities, there's a compelling use case for responsibly using LLMs to help information architecture practitioners make better use of time-tested analysis and classification approaches and tools. Here is an example of one way that LLMs and rules-based text analysis techniques can be coordinated to generate tags for a topic taxonomy that has fallen out of sync with its content set.

Domain Modeling for Structured Content

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Domain modeling helps organizations discover the information structures and meaning that allow structured content to reach further and last longer. By uncovering the assumptions and tacit rules that plague your content ecosystem, domain modeling can help you facilitate the shared vision necessary to create resilient, scalable systems for communication across channels.

Structured Content Design Workflow 2022

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Structured content design focuses on communicating effectively to an organization’s patrons, constituents, and customers, wherever they are and however they choose to access content. While it is the cornerstone of effective, scalable content design for the web, it’s also much more than just a “web” technique: it is a way to prioritize effective communication across contexts.

How to Choose Topics for Card Sorting

Close up of a finger pointing to a card among other cards on a table.

Like many “so easy anyone can do it processes,” there is a pitfall in setting up and running an effective card sorting exercise: selecting the right topics for cards. With a little bit of preparation, teamwork, and in-person (or virtual) facilitation, it’s possible to fine tune your card sorting exercise set-up process to substantially improve both the quality of your results, and the depth of insight those results reveal.

Structured Content Design Workflow

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Over the last several years I’ve become an ardent advocate of “structured content design.” This is the process of designing digital resources (like websites and apps) from the content out, as opposed to creating interaction and visual design first, then shoehorning the content into it right before (or right after) launch. A structured content approach to digital work has a number of advantages over typical “interface first” processes.