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Enterprise Information Architecture
Because Users Don’t Care About Your Org Chart


March 30, 2010
Merit Network

Louis Rosenfeld
www.louisrosenfeld.com

 ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   1
About Me

Independent IA consultant and blogger
   (www.louisrosenfeld.com)
Founder, Rosenfeld Media, UX publishing
   house (www.rosenfeldmedia.com)
Work primarily with Fortune 500s and other large
   enterprises
Co-author, Information Architecture for the World
   Wide Web (1998, 2002, 2006)
Founder and past director, the Information
   Architecture Institute (www.iainstitute.org) and User
   Experience Network (www.uxnet.org)
Background in librarianship/information science


©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   2
Seminar Agenda

Welcome/Introduction
Topic: Top-Down Navigation
Break
Topic: Bottom-Up Navigation (content modeling)
Exercise #1: Metadata
Topic: Bottom-Up Navigation (metadata)
Lunch
Topic: Search
Exercise #2: Search Analytics
Break
Topic: Research Methods
Topic: Governance and Organizational Change


 ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   3
Introduction




©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   4
Introduction:
IA in one slide
Definition: the art and science of
 structuring, organizing and labeling
 information to help people find and
 manage information
  •  Balances characteristics
     and needs of users,
     content and context
  •  Top down (questions)
     & bottom up (answers)

©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   5
Introduction:
Only one IA rule
Pareto’s Principle (“the 80/20 rule”)
      •  20% of content satisfies 80% of users’
         needs
      •  20% of possible IA options address 80% of
         content
      •  20% of IA options address 80% of users’
         needs
IA’s goal: figure out which 20%
No other rules, just guidelines


©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   6
Introduction:
IA is about priorities




©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   7
What an Enterprise Is

Large, distributed, decentralized organization
  made up of multiple business units
Distributed
      •  Functionally in many different “businesses” (e.g.,
         HR vs. communications, or hardware vs. software)
      •  Geographically
Decentralized
      •  Large degree of authority and responsibility
         resides in hands of business units in practice (if
         not officially)
      •  Business units often own significant infrastructure
         (technical, staff, expertise)

©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   8
IA and EIA:
The differences
The “enterprise challenge”: providing
  centralized access to information in a
  large, decentralized, distributed
  environment
Information often organized by business
  function (e.g., “org chart”), not in ways
  users think
Not “textbook” IA; highly dependent on
  business context

©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   9
The Challenge of EIA:
Competing trends
Trend toward autonomy
      •  Cheap, easy-to-use democratizing technology
      •  Human tendency toward autonomy
Trend toward centralization
      •  Users’ desire for single-point of access
      •  Management’s desire to control costs and
         communications
These tend to cancel each other out, getting us
  nowhere
Result: content “silos” and user confusion


©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   10
Indicators of Problematic EIA:
Intranet glitches
“How come I didn’t know your department
  was developing a product similar to
  ours?”
“Why couldn’t we find any relevant case
  studies to show that important
  prospect?”
“Why do our sales and support staff keep
  giving our customers inconsistent
  information?”

©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   11
Indicators of Problematic EIA:
External-facing site glitches
“Our customers think we’re still in the
  widget business; after all these M&As,
  why don’t they realize that we’ve
  diversified?”
“We have so many great products that go
  together; why don’t we cross-sell more?”
“Customers keep asking for product
  support through our sales channel; why
  don’t they use the site’s FAQs and tech
  support content?”
©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   12
The Holy Grail:
Cutting against the political grain




©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   13
Example: Expense Reporting




©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   14
So How Do We Get There?

Let it go
      •  There is no single solution
      •  Redemption lies within phased, modular, evolving
         approaches that respect 80/20 rule
Your friends
      •  Straw men
      •  Your colleagues and professional networks
This seminar provides straw men for
      •  EIA design
      •  EIA methods
      •  EIA team design and governance

©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   15
Top-Down
Navigation



©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   16
Top-Down Navigation Roadmap
Main page


Site hierarchy


Site map


Site index


Selective navigation



  ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   17
Top-Down Challenges

Top-down IA
      •  Anticipates questions that users arrive with
      •  Provides overview of content, entry points
         to major navigational approaches
Issues
      •    What do we do about main pages?
      •    Portals: the answer?
      •    Other ways to navigate from the top down
      •    The dangers of taxonomies


©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   18
Top-Down Evolution:
Univ. Michigan example 1/2




©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   19
Top-Down Evolution:
Univ. Michigan example 2/2




©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   20
Portal Solutions:
Why they fail 1/2
Organizational challenges
      •  Fixation on cosmetic, political
      •  Inability to enforce style guide changes, portal
         adoption
      •  Lack of ownership of centralizing initiatives, or
         ownership in wrong hands (usually IT)
Information architecture challenges
      •  Taxonomy design required for successful portal
         tool implementation
             •  Always harder than people imagine
             •  Taxonomies break down as they get closer to local
                content (domains become specialized)


©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   21
Portal Solutions:
Why they fail 2/2
Challenges for users
      •  Portals are shallow (only one or two levels deep)
      •  Poor interface design
      •  Users don’t typically personalize

More in James Robertson’s “Taking a business-
 centric approach to portals” (http://
 www.steptwo.com.au/papers/
 kmc_businessportals/index.html)



©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   22
Top-Down Navigation:
Design approaches
Main pages
Supplementary navigation
      •  Tables of contents
      •  Site indices
      •  Guide pages
Taxonomies for browsing
      •  Varieties: product, business function,
         topical
      •  Topic pages


©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   23
Top-Down Navigation:
Main pages
Often 80% of discussion of EIA dedicated to
  main page
      •  Important real estate
      •  But there are other important areas
             •    Navigational pages
             •    Search interface
             •    Search results
             •    Page design (templates, contextual navigation)
Divert attention from main pages by creating
  alternatives, new real estate: supplementary
  navigation


©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   24
Top-Down Navigation:
Supplementary navigation
Examples
      •  Site maps/TOC
      •  Site indices
Benefits:
      •  Create new real estate
      •  Can evolve and drive evolution from org-chart
         centered design to user-centered design
      •  Relatively low cost to initially implement
Drawbacks:
      •  Often unwieldy for largest enterprises (not at IBM,
         Microsoft, failure at Vanguard)


©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   25
Top-Down Navigation:
Site maps
Condensed versions of site hierarchy
      •  Hierarchical list of terms and links
      •  Primarily used for site orientation
      •  Indirectly cut across subsites by presenting multi-
         departmental content in one place
      •  But still usually reflects org chart
Alternative plan
      •  Use site map as test bed for migration to user-
         centric design
      •  Apply card sorting exercises on second and third
         level nodes
      •  Result may cut across organizational boundaries

©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   26
Site Map:
Visually




©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   27
Site Map: State of Nebraska


Majority of
links reflect
org chart




  ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   28
Site Map: State of Kentucky

Evolving
toward
more user-
centered,
topical
approach




   ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   29
Top-Down Navigation:
Site indices
Flat (or nearly flat) alpha list of terms and links
Benefits
      •  Support orientation and known-item searching
      •  Alternative “flattened” view of content
      •  Can unify content across subsites
Drawbacks
      •  Require significant expertise, maintenance
      •  May not be worth the effort if table of contents and
         search are already available
Specialized indices may be preferable (shorter,
  narrower domain, focused audience)

©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   30
Site Index:
Visually




©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   31
Site Index:
Am. Society of Indexers example
Full site index
      •  @1000
         entries for
         smallish site
      •  Too large to
         easily browse
      •  Replace with
         search?



©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   32
Specialized Site Index:
CDC example
Not a full site
  index
Focuses on health
  topics
      •  Narrow domain
      •  Specialized
         terminology
      •  Possibly still too
         large to browse



©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   33
Specialized Site Index:
PeopleSoft example
                                                                           Product focus
                                                                             •  A large
                                                                                undertaking
                                                                                at
                                                                                PeopleSoft
                                                                             •  High value
                                                                                to users




©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.                34
“Mature” Site Index:
Informed by search analytics




©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   35
Top-Down Navigation:
Guides
Single page containing selective set of important links
  embedded in narrative text
Address important, common user needs
      •  Highlight content for a specific audience
      •  Highlight content on a specific topic
      •  Explain how to complete a process
             •  Can work as FAQs (and FAQs can serve as interface to
                guides)
Benefits
      •  Technically easy to create (single HTML page)
      •  Cut across departmental subsites
      •  Gap fillers; complement comprehensive methods of
         navigation and search
      •  Can be timely (e.g., news-oriented guides, seasonal guides)
      •  Minimize political headaches by creating new real estate
©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   36
Guides:
Visually




©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   37
Guides:
Vanguard example 1/2




©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   38
Guides:
Vanguard example 2/2




©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   39
Guides:
IBM example




©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   40
Top-Down Navigation:
Topic Pages
“Selective taxonomy improvement”
      •  Portions of a taxonomy that expand
         beyond navigational value
      •  Help knit together enterprise content
         deeper down in taxonomy
New “real estate” can be used by
      •  Individual business units (to reduce
         pressure on main page) or…
      •  Cross-departmental initiatives


©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   41
Topic Pages:
 CDC example

Subtopics
now
comprise
only a small
portion of
page




  ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   42
Top-Down Navigation:
Taxonomies & portals
Can a single taxonomy unify an enterprise site?
      •      First: can one be built at all?
      •      Software tools don’t solve problems (see
             metadata discussion)
Approaches
      •      Multiple taxonomies that each cover a broad
             swath of enterprise content: audience, subject,
             task/process, etc.
      •      “Two-step” approach:
             1.  Build shallow, broad taxonomy that will answer “where
                 will I find the information I need?”
             2.  Rely on subsite taxonomies to answer “where in this
                 area will I find the information I need?”

©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   43
Top-Down Navigation:
Impacts on the enterprise
Potential of “small steps” around which to build
  more centralized enterprise efforts
       •  Site map and site index creation and maintenance
       •  Guide and topic page creation and maintenance
       •  Large editorial role, minimal technical
          requirements for both
May be preferable to tackle more ambitious
 areas much later
       •  Developing and maintaining top-level taxonomy
       •  Connecting high-level and low-level taxonomies

©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   44
Top-Down Navigation Roadmap
Main page


Site hierarchy


Site map


Site index


Selective navigation



  ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   45
Top-Down Navigation Takeaways

Main pages and portals: Bypass for now, add guides
   over time
Site hierarchy/taxonomy: Start shallow,
   "simple" (e.g., products); add progressively harder
   taxonomies (work toward faceted approach)
Site map/ToC: Use as a staging ground for a more
   topical approach
Site index: Move from generalized to specialized
   around a single topic, or augment with frequent
   search queries/best bets work
Guides: Start with a handful, then expand and rotate
   based on seasonality or other criteria of relevance

©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   46
Bottom-Up
Navigation



©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   47
Bottom-Up Navigation Roadmap



Content modeling


Metadata development


Metadata tagging



  ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   48
Bottom-Up Navigation:
The basics
Focuses on extracting answers from
 content
       •  How do I find my way through this content?
       •  Where can I go from here?
Goals
       •  Answers “rise to the surface”
       •  Leverage CMS for reuse and syndication of
          content across sites and platforms
       •  Improve contextual navigation
       •  Increase the effectiveness of search
©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   49
Content Modeling:
The heart of bottom-up navigation
Content models
      •  Used to convey meaning within select,
         high-value content areas
      •  Accommodate inter-connectedness
Same as data or object modeling?
 Absolutely not!
      •  Many distinctions between data and semi-
         structured text
      •  Text makes up majority of enterprise sites


©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   50
Content Modeling:
The basics
Based on patterns revealed during
   content inventory and analysis
What makes up a content model?
      1.  Content objects
      2.  Metadata (attributes and values)
      3.  Contextual links
Applies to multiple levels of granularity
      •       Content objects
      •       Individual documents

©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   51
Content Modeling:
We’re already doing it at page level
          album page = title/artist/release + tracks + cover image




©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   52
Content Modeling:
Content analysis reveals patterns
        album pages                                                         artist bios




   artist descriptions
                                                                           album reviews




©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.                   53
Content Modeling:
 Answer some questions
                                                                   What contextual navigation
                                                                        should exist between
  album pages                         artist bios                       these content objects?
                                                                        (see Instone’s
                                                                        “Navigation Stress
                                                                        Test”--http://user-
artist descriptions album reviews                                       experience.org/uefiles/
                                                                        navstress/ )
                                                                   Are there missing content
                                                                        objects?
                                                                   Can we connect objects
                                                                        automatically?

 ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.                  54
Content Modeling:
Fleshing out the model                                                       concert calendar




   album pages                             artist descriptions
                                                                                 TV listings




album reviews                             discography                      artist bios




©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.                  55
Content Modeling:
  Connecting with metadata, rules
Content              …link to other Content Objects…                         …by leveraging common
Objects…                                                                     Metadata Attributes
album page           album review, discography, artist                       Album Name, Artist Name,
                                                                             Label, Release Date…
album review         album page                                              Album Name, Artist Name,
                                                                             Review Author, Source,
                                                                             Pub Date…
discography          album review, artist description                        Artist Name, Album Name,
                                                                             Release Date…
artist               artist bio, discography, concert                        Artist Name, Desc Author,
description          calendar, TV listing                                    Desc Date…
artist bio           artist description                                      Artist Name, Individual
                                                                             Artist Name…
concert              artist description                                      Artist Name, Tour, Venue,
calendar                                                                     Date, Time…
TV listing           artist description                                      Artist Name, Channel,
                                                                             Date, Time…

  ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.                           56
Content Modeling:
Problematic borders                                                          concert calendar




   album pages                             artist descriptions
                                                                                 TV listings




album reviews                             discography                      artist bios




©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.                  57
Content Modeling:
When to use
Use only for high value content
High value content attributes based on users,
  content, context, including
       •    High volume
       •    Highly dynamic
       •    Consistent structure
       •    Available metadata
       •    Available content management infrastructure
       •    Willing content owners
Much content can and will remain outside
 formal content models
©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   58
Content Modeling:
Steps for developing a model
1.  Determine key audiences (who’s using it?)
2.  Perform content inventory and analysis
    (what do we have?)
3.  Determine document and object types (what
    are the objects?)
4.  Determine metadata classes (what are the
    objects about?)
5.  Determine contextual linking rules (where do
    the objects lead us to next?)

©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   59
Content Modeling:
Content object types 1/2
List known object types
For each audience:
      •  Are there types that don’t fit?
             •  Examples: company executive bios, Q&A
                columns
             •  Venue reviews may be part of a separate
                content model




©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   60
Content Modeling:
Content object types 2/2
For each audience (continued):
      •  Gap analysis: are there types missing that
         users might expect?
             •  Examples: Gig reviews, Buy the CD, Links to
                music in the same genre
      •  Which types are most important to each
         audience?
             •  Fans of the band: Interviews with the band
                members
             •  Casual listener: Samples of the CD tracks



©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   61
Content Modeling:
Metadata 1/2
Determine which objects would benefit
 from metadata
Develop three types of metadata
      •  Descriptive
      •  Intrinsic
      •  Administrative




©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   62
Content Modeling:
Metadata 2/2
Aim to balance utility and cost
      •  Answer most important questions: who,
         what, where, why, when, how?
      •  Cost-benefit analysis
      •  Development and maintenance costs of
         controlled vocabularies/thesauri
      •  Ability of in-house staff to apply properly




©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   63
Content Modeling:
Contextual linking rules
Are there specific objects for which these
  questions arise again and again?
      •  Where would I go from here?
      •  What would I want to do next?
      •  How would I learn more?
You have a rule if
      •  The questions apply consistently
      •  The answers work consistently
      •  Metadata can be leveraged to connect questions
         and answers
Unidirectional links or bidirectional?

©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   64
Content Modeling:
Impacts on the enterprise
Content models are a means for tying together
 content across business unit boundaries
Content modeling is modular; over time, content
 models can be connected across the
 enterprise
Major benefits to users who get beyond main
 page
Can help justify CMS investments
Not all content areas and owners are
 appropriate to work with


©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   65
Content Modeling:
Putting it all together




©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   66
CMS Selection:
EIA needs
Support metadata management
 (Interwoven)
Support shared metadata workflow
      •  Author creation/submission/tagging
         (distributed)
      •  Editorial tagging (centralized)
      •  Editorial review (centralized)
Ability to support contextual linking logic


©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   67
Metadata:
What is metadata?
Data about data
Information which describes a document,
  a file or a CD
Common metadata
      •  CD information: title, composer, artist, date
      •  MS Word document properties: time last
         saved, company, author



©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   68
Metadata:
Three types
1.  Intrinsic: metadata that an object holds
    about itself (e.g., file name or size)
2.  Descriptive: metadata that describes
    the object (e.g., subject, title, or
    audience)
3.  Administrative: metadata used to
    manage the object (e.g., time last
    saved, review date, owner)


©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   69
Metadata:
Common sources
Vocabularies from other parts of your
  organization (e.g., research library)
Competitors
Commercial sources (see
  www.taxonomywarehouse.com)
Your site’s users
      •  Search analytics
      •  Folksonomies
      •  User studies (e.g., free listing, card sorting)


©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   70
Metadata:
Value for the Enterprise 1/2
Search: cluster or filter the search by
  metadata, like title or keyword
Browse: create topical indexes by
  aggregating pages with the same
  metadata
Personalization and customization: show
  content to an employee based on their
  role or position in the company, e.g.
  engineer or manager



©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   71
Metadata:
Value for the Enterprise 2/2
Contextual linking: create relationships
 between individual or classes of content
 objects (e.g., cross-marketing on
 llbean.com)

The purpose is to connect
      •  Content to content
      •  Users to content
To provide value, metadata requires
 consistency (structural and semantic)
©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   72
Metadata:
Enterprise
big picture




©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   73
Metadata: Scaling problems
Barriers to
enterprise
metadata
development:
   •  Volume of
   metadata
   vocabs./silos
   •  Complexity
   of semantic
   relationships
   (beyond
   synonyms)




 ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   74
Metadata attributes:
Easy to difficult 1/2
Level                 of Metadata                        Comments
Difficulty               Attribute
Easy                         Business unit These are typically already
                             names         available and standardized
Easy                   to Chronology                     Variations  in   formats    (e.g.,
Moderate                                                 12/31/07 versus 31/12/07) usually
                                                         can be addressed by software
Moderate               to Place names                    Although many standards exist
Difficult                                                (e.g., state abbreviations and
                                                         postal codes), many enterprises
                                                         (and their business units) use
                                                         custom terms for regions (such as
                                                         sales territories)


©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.                      75
Metadata attributes:
Easy to difficult 2/2
Level                 of Metadata                        Comments
Difficulty               Attribute
Moderate               to Product                        Product granularity can vary
Difficult                 names                          greatly; marketing may think in
                                                         terms of product families; sales in
                                                         terms of items with SKU numbers,
                                                         and support in terms of product
                                                         parts that can be sold individually
Difficult                    Audiences                   Audiences, such as customers or
                                                         types of employees, vary widely
                                                         from unit to unit
Difficult                    Topics                      The most ambiguous type of
                                                         metadata; difficult for individuals,
                                                         much less business units, to come
                                                         to agreement on topical metadata
©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.                        76
Metadata:
Structural consistency
Standard formats and approaches enable
   interoperability, which enables sharing of
   metadata.
Examples
      •       RDF (Resource Description Format)
      •       Topic Maps
      •       Dublin Core
      •       OAI (Open Archives Initiative)
Sources
      •       Academia/scholarly publishing world
      •       Little from data management world

©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   77
Metadata:
   RDF (Resource Description Format)
   A syntax for expressing semantic
      relationships
   Basic components
          1.  Resource      3. Value
          2.  Property type 4. Property


                                                                               2
                                         1
                                        3
                                                                         4
From Andy Powell: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/presentations/ukolug98/paper/intro.html
    ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.            78
Metadata:
Topic Maps
Potential syntax for content modeling, semantic webs
Most simply, made up of             associations
  topics (e.g., “Lucca”,
  “Italy”), occurrences
  (e.g., “map”, “book”),
  and associations (e.g., topics
  “…is in…”, “…written
  by…”)
Source: Tao of Topic
  Maps, Steve Pepper
    (http://www.ontopia.net/
    topicmaps/materials/
    tao.html)
                                                              occurrences
©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.    79
Metadata:
The Dublin Core
A schema for expressing semantic relationships
Can use HTML or RDF syntax
Useful tool (or model) for creating document
  surrogates (e.g., Best Bet records)
A standard, but not a religious one
      •  Selecting fewer attributes may be a necessity in
         enterprise environment
      •  Attribute review can be useful as an enterprise-
         wide exercise



©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   80
Metadata:
Dublin Core elements 1/2
Title: A name given to the resource
Creator: An entity primarily responsible for making the
   content of the resource
Subject: A topic of the content of the resource
Description: An account of the content of the resource
Publisher: An entity responsible for making the resource
   available
Contributor: An entity responsible for making
   contributions to the content of the resource
Date: A date of an event in the lifecycle of the resource


©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   81
Metadata:
 Dublin Core elements 2/2
Type: The nature or genre of the content of the resource
Format: The physical or digital manifestation of the resource
Identifier: An unambiguous reference to the resource within a
   given context
Source: A Reference to a resource from which the present
   resource is derived
Language: A language of the intellectual content of the
   resource
Relation: A reference to a related resource
Coverage: The extent or scope of the content of the resource
Rights: Information about rights held in and over the resource
 ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   82
Metadata:
   Dublin Core in HTML




   Dublin Core elements identified with “DC”
    prefix

From Andy Powell: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/presentations/ukolug98/paper/intro.html
    ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.        83
Metadata:
   Dublin Core and RDF




   Syntax and schema combination is useful
   But where are the metadata values?

From Andy Powell: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/presentations/ukolug98/paper/intro.html
    ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.        84
Metadata:
OAI and metadata harvesting
OAI: Open Archives Initiative
       •  Comes from academic publishing world
       •  Provides means for central registration of
          “confederate repositories”
       •  Repositories use Dublin Core; requests between
          service and data providers via HTTP; replies
          (results) encoded in XML
Metadata harvesting
       •  Enables improved searching across compliant
          distributed repositories
       •  Does not address semantic merging of metadata
          (i.e., vocabulary control)

©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   85
Metadata:
Semantic consistency 1/2
Provided through controlled vocabularies.
What is a controlled vocabulary?
      •  A list of preferred and variant terms
      •  A subset of natural language
Why control vocabulary?
      •  Language is Ambiguous
      •  Synonyms, homonyms, antonyms,
         contronyms, etc. (e.g., truck, lorry, semi,
         pickup, UTE)


©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   86
Metadata:
Semantic consistency 2/2

                               Users                              Example
                                                                  Personal Digital Assistant

                                                                  Synonyms
                                                                        Handheld Computer
                                                                  "Alternate" Spellings
                                                                        Persenal Digitel Asistent
                                                                  Abbreviations / Acronyms
                                                                        PDA
                  Communication Chasm                             Broader Terms
                                                                        Wireless, Computers
                                                                  Narrower Terms
                                                                        PalmPilot, PocketPC
                                                                  Related Terms
                                                                        WindowsCE, Cell Phones




              Documents and Applications
                                                                  Control vocabulary…so your
                                                                    users don’t have to!
©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.                            87
Metadata:
Semantic relationships
Three types
      1.  Equivalence: Variant terms with same
          meaning (e.g., abbreviations and
          synonyms)
      2.  Hierarchical: Broader term, narrower
          term relationships
      3.  Associative: Related terms that are
          related to each other



©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   88
Metadata:
Levels of control

                                                 (Vocabularies)

  Synonym                       Authority                   Classification
                                                                                Thesauri
   Rings                         Files                        Schemes


     Simple                                                                      Complex


     Equivalence                                Hierarchical                 Associative
                                                (Relationships)

©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.                   89
Metadata semantic relationships:
Hard to hardest

Level      of Type      of Examples
Difficulty    Relationship
Hard                           Synonymous Synonym rings and
                                          authority lists
Harder                         Hierarchical                         Classification
                                                                    schemes
Hardest                        Associative                          Thesauri



©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.             90
Metadata:
Synonym rings
Used in many search engines to expand
 the number of results
Words that are similar to each other are
 linked together
Example for a multinational company
      •  Annual leave (Australia), the holidays (US),
         public holidays (Australia, US), vacation
         (US), bank holidays (UK), holiday
         (Australia and UK), personal leave (all)


©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   91
Metadata:
Authority files
Pick list of the authorized words to use in
  a field
Can have some equivalence relationships
Example using authors
      •  Poe, Edgar Allan--USE FOR Poe, E.A.
      •  Poe, E.A.--USE Poe, Edgar Allan




©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   92
Metadata:
Classification schemes
Classification
      •  Systematic arrangement of knowledge, usually
         hierarchical
      •  Placement of objects into a scheme which makes
         sense to the user and relates them to other
         objects
Two types of classification schemes
      •  Enumerative classification: hierarchical
         organization into which objects are placed
      •  Faceted classification: organization by facets or
         attributes that describe the object



©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   93
Metadata:
Enumerative classification
Really good to classify small numbers of objects
  or objects that can live in only one place
Provides good browsing structure
Can be polyhierarchical, where objects live in
  many places
Best known: the taxonomy of life, Dewey
  Decimal Classification, Library of Congress
  Classification
Most familiar on the Web: Yahoo!, Open
  Directory



©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   94
Metadata:
Enumerative classification example




©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   95
Metadata:
Faceted classification 1/2
Describes the object with numerous
 facets or attributes
Each facet could have a separate
 controlled vocabulary of its own
Can mix and match the facets to create a
 browsing structure
Easier to manage the controlled
 vocabularies

©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   96
Metadata:
Faceted classification 2/2
Facets for a roast chicken recipe
       •  Preparation: Roast / bake
       •  Main ingredient: Chicken
       •  Course: Main dish
Drawbacks of faceted classification
       •  Too many facets attached to an object can
          make indexing hard to do
       •  Browsing facets may not be as clear as
          browsing a hierarchy; many paths to the
          same object
©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   97
Metadata:
Faceted classification example




©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   98
Metadata:
Faceted classification example




©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   99
Metadata:
What is a thesaurus?
      Traditional use
      •  Dictionary of synonyms (Roget’s)
      •  From one word to many words
      Information retrieval context
      •  A controlled vocabulary in which
         equivalence, hierarchical, and associative
         relationships are identified for purposes of
         improved retrieval
      •  From many words to one word


©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   100
Metadata:
Thesaurus entry example




©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   101
Enterprise Metadata:
Challenges
Two barriers to enterprise metadata
1.  Interoperability (structural)
2.  Merging enables controlled vocabularies to
    work as a whole (semantic)
Interoperability must come before
    merging (merging requires knowledge
    of which vocabularies to merge)
Few standards in use

©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   102
Enterprise Metadata:
Structural approaches
If directly marking up documents, this
   approach is probably impractical in the
   enterprise
Better uses:
      •  Limited high value documents (e.g.,
         content models)
      •  Document surrogates (e.g., Best Bet
         records)


©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   103
Enterprise Metadata:
Merging vocabularies
Extremely difficult, and currently rare
Mostly found in libraries, academia,
   scholarly publishing, and other
   resource-poor environments
Examples, hard to hardest
      •       Cross-walking vocabularies
      •       Switching vocabularies
      •       Meta-thesaurus
      •       Single thesaurus


©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   104
Merging Vocabularies:
Vocabulary cross-walking
Map terms peer-to-peer between
 individual vocabularies
      •  Primarily handles synonyms, not
         relationships
      •  Can be handled manually or through
         automated means (pattern-matching)
Doesn’t scale well beyond two or three
 vocabularies


©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   105
Merging Vocabularies:
Switching vocabulary
A single vocabulary that maps to existing
  vocabularies (primarily synonyms)
Similar to cross-walking, but better at
  handling translation when there are
  more than two or three vocabularies to
  connect




©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   106
Merging Vocabularies:
Meta-thesaurus
A switching vocabulary which also
  includes thesaural relationships
  (essentially a thesaurus of thesauri)
Example: National Library of Medicine’s
  UMLS (Unified Medical Language
  System)
      •  Merges over 100 vocabularies
      •  Describes fairly homogeneous domain
         (medical literature) for fairly homogeneous
         audience (health science professionals)
©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   107
Merging Vocabularies:
Single unified thesaurus
Highly impractical in enterprise context




©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   108
Metadata:
What is metadata?
Data about data
Information which describes a document,
  a file or a CD
Common metadata
      •  CD information: title, composer, artist, date
      •  MS Word document properties: time last
         saved, company, author



©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   109
Metadata:
Three types
1.  Intrinsic: metadata that an object holds
    about itself (e.g., file name or size)
2.  Descriptive: metadata that describes
    the object (e.g., subject, title, or
    audience)
3.  Administrative: metadata used to
    manage the object (e.g., time last
    saved, review date, owner)


©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   110
Metadata:
Common sources
Vocabularies from other parts of your
  organization (e.g., research library)
Competitors
Commercial sources (see
  www.taxonomywarehouse.com)
Your site’s users
      •  Search analytics
      •  Folksonomies
      •  User studies (e.g., free listing, card sorting)


©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   111
Metadata:
Big org,
big picture




©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   112
Metadata: Scaling problems
Barriers to
enterprise
metadata
development:
   •  Volume of
   metadata
   vocabs./silos
   •  Complexity
   of semantic
   relationships
   (beyond
   synonyms)




 ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   113
Metadata in the Large Org:
Challenges
Two barriers to enterprise metadata
1.  Interoperability (structural)
2.  Merging enables controlled vocabularies to
    work as a whole (semantic)
Interoperability must come before
    merging (which requires knowledge of
    which vocabularies to merge)
Few standards in use

©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   114
Metadata attributes:
Easy to difficult 1/2
Level                 of Metadata                        Comments
Difficulty               Attribute
Easy                         Business unit These are typically already
                             names         available and standardized
Easy                   to Chronology                     Variations  in   formats    (e.g.,
Moderate                                                 12/31/07 versus 31/12/07) usually
                                                         can be addressed by software
Moderate               to Place names                    Although many standards exist
Difficult                                                (e.g., state abbreviations and
                                                         postal codes), many enterprises
                                                         (and their business units) use
                                                         custom terms for regions (such as
                                                         sales territories)


©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.                  115
Metadata attributes:
Easy to difficult 2/2
Level                 of Metadata                        Comments
Difficulty               Attribute
Moderate               to Product                        Product granularity can vary
Difficult                 names                          greatly; marketing may think in
                                                         terms of product families; sales in
                                                         terms of items with SKU numbers,
                                                         and support in terms of product
                                                         parts that can be sold individually
Difficult                    Audiences                   Audiences, such as customers or
                                                         types of employees, vary widely
                                                         from unit to unit
Difficult                    Topics                      The most ambiguous type of
                                                         metadata; difficult for individuals,
                                                         much less business units, to come
                                                         to agreement on topical metadata
©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.                    116
Metadata:
Levels of control

                                                 (Vocabularies)

  Synonym                       Authority                   Classification
                                                                                Thesauri
   Rings                         Files                        Schemes


     Simple                                                                      Complex


     Equivalence                                Hierarchical                 Associative
                                                (Relationships)

©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.                   117
Metadata semantic relationships:
Hard to hardest

Level      of Type      of Examples
Difficulty    Relationship
Hard                           Synonymous Synonym rings and
                                          authority lists
Harder                         Hierarchical                         Classification
                                                                    schemes
Hardest                        Associative                          Thesauri



©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.             118
Metadata:
Strategy for large orgs 1/2
Coordinate to ensure:
       •  Structural interoperability from the start
       •  Semantic mergability over time
       •  Vocabulary control and maintenance
          through both manual and automated
          means
       •  A workflow model and policies to support:
              •  Decentralized tagging and vocabulary updating
                 (through suggestions of new terms)
              •  Centralized review and maintenance
©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   119
Enterprise Metadata:
Strategy for large orgs 2/2
“Serious metadata” is beyond the means of
   most enterprises
       •       Encourage local (e.g., departmental) vocabulary
               development
       •       Provides organizational learning and local
               benefit
       •       Enterprise-wide, start with “easier” vocabularies;
               work your way to harder ones over time;
               suggested sequence:
              1.  Business functions
              2.  Products
              3.  Topics
©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   120
Bottom-Up Navigation Roadmap



Content modeling


Metadata development


Metadata tagging



  ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   121
Bottom-Up Navigation Takeaways
1/3
Content models
      •  Use to support contextual navigation
      •  Apply only to homogenous, high-value
         content
      •  Won't transfer easily across silos and will
         require significant metadata development




©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   122
Bottom-Up Navigation Takeaways
2/3
Metadata development
      •  Distinguish attributes (and structural
         interoperability) from values (and
         semantic merging)
      •  Costs and value both increase as these
         increase:
             •  Complexity of relationships between terms
                (equivalence=>hierarchical=>associative)
             •  Level of control (synonym rings=>authority
                files=>classification schemes=>thesauri)
      •  Think small: facets instead of a single
         taxonomy
©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   123
Bottom-Up Navigation Takeaways
3/3
Metadata tagging
      •  Make choices based on actual needs
         (e.g., content models) rather than
         exhaustive indexing
      •  Consider costs of application and upkeep
             •  Need for professional expertise
             •  Metadata is a moving target that matches
                other moving targets (users and content)




©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   124
EIA and Search




©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   125
EIA and Search

Search systems are a natural enterprise IA tool
      •  Automated
      •  Crawls what you tell it to
      •  Doesn’t care about politics
Problems with shrink-wrapped search tools
      •  Default settings, IT ownership minimize
         customization to fit the enterprise’s needs
      •  Results often not relevant, poorly presented
Customization is the answer
      •  Within the realm of your team’s abilities
      •  … and if IT will allow it!

©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   126
EIA and Search:
Visually




©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   127
Enterprise Search Design:
Potential improvements

                                                                           Our focus:
                                                                           1.  Clear interface
                                                                           2.  Enhanced
                                                                                queries
                                                                           3.  Improved
                                                                                results
                                                                                (relevance &
                                                                                presentation)




  Basic search system components

©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.                 128
Enterprise Search Roadmap




Search interface


Search queries


Search results



  ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   129
Search Interface Design:
The “Box”
The “Box” unifies
  IBM.com
Consistent:
      •    Placement
      •    Design
      •    Labeling
      •    Functionality




©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   130
Search Interface Design:
 Combine interfaces when possible

Will users understand?




  Two boxes bad, one box good, usually…

 ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   131
Search Interface Design:
 The role of “advanced search” 1/2

Not a likely
starting point
for users who
are searching




                                                      Continued…
 ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   132
Search Interface Design:
 The role of “advanced search” 2/2
Suggestions
    •  Use for
       specialized
       interfaces
    •  Reposition as
       “Revise
       Search”
    •  Don’t bother




 ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   133
Contextualizing Search Help:
Ebay example




©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   134
Search Interface and Queries:
Functionality and visibility
Hide functionality? Consider the “Google
  Effect,” human nature and the LCD
Don’t hide it?
      •  Not if users expect it
             •  Legacy experience (e.g., Lexis-Nexis users)
             •  Specialization (e.g., patent searchers)
      •  Not if content allows/requires it
             •  Specialized content and applications (e.g., staff
                directory)


©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   135
The Query:
Query language considerations
Natural language
       •  Usually don’t show up in search logs
       •  Low priority, but nice to support
Operators (Booleans, proximity, wild cards)
       •  Booleans: use default “AND” for multi-term queries
              •  Less forgiving than treating as phrase, more selective than
                 “OR”
              •  Most retrieval algorithms will find results for just one term
              •  Rely on other approaches (e.g., filtering, clustering, Best
                 Bets) to reduce search results overload
       •  Low priority: Proximity operators (e.g., “enterprise
          (W3) architecture”), wild cards (e.g., “wom*n”)

©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   136
The Query:
Query building considerations
Large potential benefits to improving
  “intelligence” behind search queries
       •  Adding semantic richness to queries allows for
          stronger searches without “touching” content
       •  Overrides “enterprise bias” embedded in content
       •  A centralized (enterprise-wide) process
Query building approaches
       •    Spell checking: can be automated
       •    Stemming: can be automated
       •    Concept searching: requires manual effort
       •    Synonyms (via thesaurus): requires manual effort,
            but no need to be comprehensive
©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   137
Spell Checker:
  Sur La Table example




A la Google…




  ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   138
Stemming:
 IBM example



IBM uses
Fast Search




  ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   139
Concept Searching:
Social Security Admin. example




SSA uses
Convera
©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   140
Thesaural Search:
ERIC example




©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   141
Enterprise Search Interface:
Guidelines
Hide functionality on initial enterprise-wide
  search
Cast the net widely: rely on query builders
  to generate larger, higher quality result
  sets
Use filtering/clustering to narrow
Use Best Bets to ensure strong initial
  results

©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   142
Individual Search Results:
Goals
Enable users to quickly understand something
  about each document represented
That “something”: confirm that a known-item
  has been found, or distinguish from other
  results
Align to searching behaviors (determined
  through user testing, persona/scenario
  analysis, site search analytics)
      •  Known-item
      •  Open-ended/exploratory
      •  Comprehensive research

©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   143
Individual Search Results:
Approaches
Basic approaches
      •  Document titling
      •  Displaying appropriate elements for each
         result
These approaches have value in any
 context, but especially useful in
 enterprise setting



©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   144
Document Titling:
DaimlerChrysler example




What do these document titles tell you?
And what do they tell you about DaimlerChrysler?
©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   145
Document Titling:
Ford example
Descriptive document titles provide clear value




©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   146
Displaying Appropriate Elements:
1) Determine common elements
Develop table of available elements (including
  metadata) for disparate documents and records
      •  Comes after content inventory and analysis
Develop table of common elements
      •  Collapse similar elements (e.g., creator derived from author,
         artist, source…)
      •  Consider Dublin Core as model
      •  Include bare minimum elements (e.g., title and description)




©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   147
Displaying Appropriate Elements:
2) Select appropriate elements
Choose common elements which match most common
  searching behaviors
      •    Known-item
      •    Open-ended
      •    Comprehensive research
      •    Etc.
Considerations
      •  Which components are decision or action based?
      •  Which components are of informational value only?
Display these elements for each search result




©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   148
Step #1: common content elements
Step #2: select elements to display
   Step #1                       Title        Description Creator Topic            Date
   Tech. Report                     Y                   Y                  Y   Y    Y

   Policy                           Y                   N                  Y   Y    Y
   Product                          Y                   Y                  N   Y    N
   Sheet
   FAQ                              Y                   N                  N   Y    N


   Step #2                      Title         Description Creator Topic            Date
   Known-Item                       Y                   N                  Y   N    Y

   Open-Ended                       Y                   Y                  N   Y    Y


©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.                  149
Individual Search Results:
 Columbia University example
Long display for open-                                                   …shorter display for
  ended searchers…                                                        known-item searchers




  ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.                 150
Individual Search Results:
What happens next?
Augment with “next step” actions per result
       •  Open in separate
          window
       •  Get more like this
       •  Print
       •  Save
       •  Email
Determine next steps
 through contextual
 inquiry

©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   151
Presenting Search Result Groups:
Ranked results
Difficulties with relevance ranking
      •  Depends on consistent elements across
         documents
      •  Term frequency-dependent approaches create an
         “apples and oranges effect” on ranking
      •  Google effect: benefits of popularity make less
         sense in enterprise context than in open web
Consider alternatives
      •  Clustering and filtering
      •  Manually-derived results (aka “Best Bets”)



©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   152
Presenting Search Result Groups:
   Clustering & filtering
“Our user studies show that all Category interfaces were more effective
than List interfaces even when lists were augmented with category names
for each result” —Dumais, Cutrell & Chen

                                                                              list results
                                                 clustered results
Consider using
clustered results
rather than list
results




   ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.                  153
Presenting Search Result Groups:
Methods of clustering and filtering
Use existing metadata and other distinctions
 (easier)
      •  Document type (via file format or CMS)
      •  Source (author, publisher, and business unit)
      •  Date (creation date? publication date? last
         update?)
      •  Security setting (via login, cookies)
Use explicit metadata (harder)
      •    Language
      •    Product
      •    Audience
      •    Subject/topic
©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   154
Clustering by Topic:
  LL Bean example

Category
matches
displayed
rather than
individual
results




  ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   155
Filtering by Source:
BBC example

 Selecting a
 tab filters
 results




©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   156
Clustering by Content Type:
  c|net example
   Mention content modeling




Results clustered in multiple
content types

   ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   157
Clustering by Language Example:
  PeopleSoft Netherlands
Result clusters
for Dutch and
English




  ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   158
Mixed Presentation of
Search Results




©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   159
“Best Bets”:
By popular demand
Recommended links
      •  Ensure useful results for top X (50? 100?)
         most popular search queries
      •  Useful resources for each popular query
         are manually determined (guided by
         documented logic)
      •  Useful resources manually linked to
         popular queries; automatically displayed in
         result page


©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   160
“Best Bets” Example:
 BBC
Logic for BBC
  Best Bets
   •  Is query a
      country name?
      (yes)
   •  Then do we
      have a country
      profile? (yes)
   •  Then do we
      have a
      language
      service? (yes)

 ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   161
“Best Bets”:
In the enterprise context
Who does the work?
      •  Difficult to “assign” queries to different business units (e.g.,
         “computing” means different things to different business
         units)
      •  Can serve as impetus for centralized effort
Operational requirements
      •  Logic based on users’ needs (e.g., queries) and business
         rules
      •  Policy that assigns responsibilities, negotiates conflicts (e.g.,
         who owns “computing”)
Opportunity to align Best Bets to user-centric divisions
  (e.g., by audience: a “computing” best bet for
  researchers, another for IT staff)


©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.    162
Enterprise Search:
Impacts on the enterprise
Designs
      •  Simple query builders (spell checker, stemming)
      •  Search-enhancing thesaurus
Policies
      •  Best Bets design and selection
      •  Style guide (result titling, search interface implementation)
Staffing needs
      •    Content inventory and analysis
      •    Interface design
      •    Work with IT on spidering, configuration issues
      •    Ongoing site search analytics
      •    Editorial (e.g., Best Bets creation)



©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   163
Search Tool Selection:
EIA needs 1/2
To basic evaluation criteria (from
 SearchTools.com)…
      •    Price
      •    Platform
      •    Capacity
      •    Ease of installation
      •    Maintenance




©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   164
Search Tool Selection:
EIA needs 2/2
…add:
      •  Ability to crawl deep/invisible web
      •  Ability to crawl multiple file formats
      •  Ability to crawl secure content
      •  API for customizing search results
      •  Work with CMS
      •  Duplicate result detection/removal
      •  Ability to tweak algorithms for results retrieval and
         presentation
      •  Federated search (merge results from multiple
         search engines/data sources)


©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   165
Enterprise Search Roadmap




Search interface


Search queries


Search results



  ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   166
Enterprise Search Takeaways

Search interface and queries
      •  Consistent location and behavior
      •  Keep as simple as possible
      •  Use "refine search" interface instead of "advanced
         search"
      •  Soup up users’ queries (e.g., spell checking)
Search results
      •  Feature appropriate elements for individual results
      •  Consider clustered results, especially if explicit,
         topical metadata are available
      •  Best bets results for top X common queries


©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   167
EIA Research
Methods



©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   168
EIA Research Methods:
 Learn about these three areas

Content, users and
context drive:
  •  IA research
  •  IA design
  •  IA staffing
  •  IA education
  •  …and everything else

 ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   169
EIA Research Methods:
Sampling challenges
How do you achieve representative
 samples in the face of these difficulties?
      •  Awareness: Who and what are out there?
      •  Volume: How much is there? Can we
         cover it all?
      •  Costs: Can we afford to investigate at this
         order of magnitude?
      •  Politics: Who will work with us? And who
         will try to get in the way?

©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   170
EIA Research Methods:
Reliance on alternative techniques
Standard techniques may not work in
  enterprise settings
Alternatives often incorporate traditional
  methods and new technologies
      •  Web-based surveys (e.g., SurveyMonkey)
      •  Remote contextual inquiry and task
         analysis (via WebEx)
      •  Web-based “card” sorting (e.g., WebSort)
      •  Log analysis tools (e.g., WebTrends)


©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   171
EIA Research Methods:
A closer look
Content-oriented methods
      •  Content inventories
      •  Content value tiers
Context-oriented methods
      •  Sampling stakeholders
      •  Departmental scorecard
User-oriented methods
      •    2-D scorecard
      •    Automated metadata development
      •    Freelisting
      •    Site search analytics

©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   172
Content Inventory:
Enterprise context
Issues
       •  Even greater sampling challenges
       •  Content research is even more critical:
          serves as a cross-departmental exercise
Approaches
       •  Balancing breadth and depth
       •  Talking to the right people
       •  Value-driven


©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   173
Multidimensional Inventory:
Incomplete yet rich
EIA requires balanced, iterative sampling (where CMS
  implementation may require exhaustive inventory)
Balance scope (breadth) with granularity (depth)
Extend inventory to all discernible areas of content,
  functionality:
      •    Portals and subsites
      •    Application (including search systems)
      •    Supplemental navigation (site maps, indices, guides)
      •    Major taxonomies
      •    Structured databases
      •    Existing content models
      •    Stakeholders


©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   174
Content Migration Strategy:
Value Tier Approach
Determine value tiers of content quality that
 make sense given your users/content/context
      •  Answer “what content is important to the
         enterprise?”
      •  Help determine what to add, maintain, delete
How to do it?
      1. Prioritize and weight quality criteria
      2. Rate content areas
      3. Cluster into tiers
      4. Score content areas while performing content
         analysis


©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   175
Value Tier Approach:
Potential quality criteria
Select appropriate criteria for your
 business context, users, and content
      •  Authority
      •  Strategic value
      •  Currency
      •  Usability
      •  Popularity/usage
      •  Feasibility (i.e., “enlightened” content
         owners)
      •  Presence of quality existing metadata
©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   176
Value Tier Approach:
Weighting and scoring




©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   177
Value Tier Approach:
Prioritization




©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   178
Assessing Stakeholders:
What to learn from them
Strategic
      •  Understanding of business mission and goals, and
         fit with larger enterprise mission and goals
             •  Theory
             •  Practice
      •  Culture: tilt toward centralization or autonomy
      •  Political entanglements
Practical
      •  Staff: IT, IA, design, authoring, editorial, usability,
         other UX (user experience)
      •  Resources: budget, content, captive audiences
      •  Technologies: search, portal, CMS

©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   179
Stakeholder Interviews:
Triangulate your sample
Org chart: business unit representatives
      •  Will provide strategic overview of content and
         whom it serves
      •  May have some knowledge of content
      •  More importantly, they know people who do in
         their units
      •  Additionally, political value in talking with unit reps
Functional/audience-centered
      •  Subject Matter Experts (SMEs): represent power
         users; valuable for pointing out content that
         addresses major information needs
      •  Audience advocates (e.g., switchboard operators):
         can describe content with high volume usage
©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   180
Stakeholder Interviews:
Finding the low-hanging fruit
Assessment should reveal degree of
  “enlightenment”
      •  Early adopters
      •  Successful track records visible within the
         enterprise
      •  Understand/have experience with enterprise-wide
         initiatives
      •  Willingness to benefit the enterprise as a whole
      •  They just plain “get it”
You’ve got to play to win: lack of interest and
  availability mean loss of influence

©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   181
Stakeholder Interviews:
Indicators of enlightenment
Technology assessment: who has/uses the
  “classic 3”?
       •  Portal
       •  Search engine
       •  CMS
Staff review: who has relevant skills/expertise
  on their staff?
IA review: what areas of enterprise site have
  strong architectures?
These areas may indicate redundant costs,
  targets for centralization
©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   182
Involving Stakeholders:
  Departmental Report Card

  Information Architecture                                                   Dept. Dept. Dept.
         Heuristic                                                            1     2     3
Supports orientation                                                          B-    B     B
Supports known-item searching                                                 A     C+     C
Supports associative learning                                                 B     C      C
Supports comprehensive research                                               A     B+     B
Passes “navigation stress test”                                               C     F     C+
                               …                                              …     …     …

  ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.                 183
“Safe” User Sampling:
The 2D Scorecard
Combines alternative, apolitical methods
 for determining segments to sample,
 e.g.:
      •  Role-based segmentation
      •  Demographic segmentation
Distracts stakeholders from “org chart-
  itis,” to purify sampling
Enables evaluation methods (e.g., task
  analysis, card sorting)

©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   184
The 2D Scorecard:
Role-based segmentation
Roles cut across political boundaries
       •  Profile core enterprise-wide business
          functions
              •  Why does the enterprise exist?
              •  Examples: Sell products, B2B or B2C
                 activities, manufacture products, inform
                 opinion, etc.
       •  Determine major “actors” in each process



©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   185
The 2D Scorecard:
Demographic segmentation
Standard, familiar measure; also cuts
  across political boundaries
      •    Gender
      •    Geography
      •    Age
      •    Income level
      •    Education level
Your marketing department probably has
 this data already

©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   186
The 2D Scorecard:
Combining roles & demographics
 TEST                 Demo.               Demo.                Demo.       Demo.
SAMPLE                Profile             Profile              Profile     Profile   TOTAL
 SIZE                   A                   B                    C           D
 Role 1                     1                   3                    3       2        9
 Role 2                     2                   2                    1       1        6
 Role 3                     3                   4                    2       1        10
 Role 4                     0                   3                    4       0        7
 TOTAL                      6                  12                  10        4        32
©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.                   187
The 2D Scorecard:
Incorporating contextual bias
Role/demographic “scorecard” is pure
       •  Serves as a structure that doesn’t have to
          change substantially
       •  But how to incorporate stakeholder bias?
Stakeholder bias can be accommodated
       •  Poll/interview stakeholders to determine
          how cell values should change
       •  Axes and totals stay mostly the same
       •  Distraction is our friend
©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   188
The 2D Scorecard:
After stakeholder input
 TEST                 Demo.               Demo.                Demo.       Demo.
SAMPLE                Profile             Profile              Profile     Profile   TOTAL
 SIZE                   A                   B                    C           D
 Role 1                     1                   2                    5       1        9
 Role 2                     1                   1                    3       1        6
 Role 3                     3                   4                    2       1        10
 Role 4                     0                   3                    3       1        7
 TOTAL                      5                  10                  13        4        32
©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.                   189
Maintaining a User Pool:
Build your own for fun and power
Through automated surveys, lower level
 information architect built an enterprise-
 wide pool of 1,500 users
  •  Prescreened by demographics and skills
  •  Provided him with substantial leverage with
     others who wanted access to users
  •  He just got there first and did the obvious
More information: http://louisrosenfeld.com/
 home/bloug_archive/000408.html


©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   190
Metadata Development:
Conventional techniques
Techniques
      •  Open card-sorting to gather terms
      •  Closed card-sorting to validate terms
      •  Can be difficult to carry out in enterprise environment
         (scope of vocabulary, subject sampling)
Modifications for enterprise setting
      •  Use remote tools (e.g. IBM’s EZsort)
      •  Apply in “stepped” mode: test subsections of taxonomy
         separately
      •  Drawback: lack of physical cards may diminish value of
         data



©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   191
Metadata Development:
Classification scheme analysis
Review existing schemes, looking for:
      •  Duplication of domain
      •  Overlapping domains
      •  Consistency or lack thereof
Can some vocabularies be reused?
 Improved? Eliminated?




©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   192
Automated Metadata
Development:
Two classes of tools
Auto-categorization tools
       •  Can leverage pattern-matching and cluster-
          analysis algorithms to automatically generate
          categories (e.g., Autonomy, Interwoven)
       •  Can also use rules (i.e., concepts) to generate
          categories (e.g., Inktomi, Verity, Entrieva/Semio)
Auto-classification tools
       •  Apply indexing to existing categories
       •  Require controlled vocabularies (generally
          manually-created) to index content

©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   193
Automated Metadata
Development:
Pros and cons
Benefits
       •  Apolitical applications that disregard org
          chart
       •  May be a necessary evil in a large
          enterprise environment
Drawbacks
       •  Limited value in heterogeneous, multi-
          domain environment
       •  Perform better with rich text, not so good
          with database records and other brief
          documents
©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   194
Automated Metadata
     Development:
     Semio example
“E-commerce”:
A human would
collapse many
of these
categories




     At best, an 80% solution; none truly “automated”
            •  Significant manual proofing of the 80% of content indexed
            •  Significant manual indexing of the 20% not indexed




     ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   195
Finding Metadata:
Free listing
Simple technique:
       •  “List all of the terms you associate with ______”
       •  Perform pair analysis (co-occurrence) on results
Benefits
       •  Harvests terms associated with a concept or
          domain
       •  Can be done in survey form with many subjects,
          multiple audiences
       •  Supports card sorting
       •  Less useful for structuring relationships between
          terms
       •  Possible alternative to site search analytics
©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   196
The Zipf Curve:
   Consistent and telling

Zipf distribution
from Michigan
State University
search logs
(derived from site
search analytics)




    From http://netfact.com/rww/write/searcher/rww-searcher-msukeywords-searchdist-apr-jul2002.gif
   ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.                          197
Common Search Queries:
What they tell us




©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   198
Site Search Analytics:
What does this data tell us?
Keywords: focis; 0; 11/26/01 12:57 PM; XXX.XXX.XXX.2
Keywords: focus; 167; 11/26/01 12:59 PM; XXX.XXX.XXX.2
Keywords: focus pricing; 12; 11/26/01 1:02 PM; XXX.XXX.XXX.2
Keywords: discounts for college students; 0; 11/26/01 3:35 PM;
XXX.XXX.XXX.59
Keywords: student discounts; 3; 11/26/01 3:35 PM; XXX.XXX.XXX.59
Keywords: ford or mercury; 500; 11/26/01 3:35 PM; XXX.XXX.XXX.
126
Keywords: (ford or mercury) and dealers; 73; 11/26/01 3:36 PM;
XXX.XXX.XXX.126
Keywords: lorry; 0; 11/26/01 3:36 PM; XXX.XXX.XXX.36
Keywords: “safety ratings”; 3; 11/26/01 3:36 PM; XXX.XXX.XXX.55
Keywords: safety; 389; 11/26/01 3:36 PM; XXX.XXX.XXX.55
Keywords: seatbelts; 2; 11/26/01 3:37 PM; XXX.XXX.XXX.55
Keywords: seat belts; 33; 11/26/01 3:37 PM; XXX.XXX.XXX.55



©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   199
Site Search Analytics:
Instructions
Sort and count queries
Identify and group similar queries (e.g., “cell
  phones” and “mobile phones”)
Understand users’ query syntax (e.g., use of
  single or multiple terms, Boolean operators)
  and semantics (e.g., use of lay or
  professional terms)
Determine most common queries
       •  Identify content gaps through 0 result queries
       •  Build “Best Bets” for common queries
       •  Map common queries to audiences through IP or
          login analysis
©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   200
Site Search Analytics:
Benefits for interface development
Identifies “dead end” points (e.g., 0 hits, 2000
  hits) where assistance could be added (e.g.,
  revise search, browsing alternative)
Syntax of queries informs selection of search
  features to expose (e.g., use of Boolean
  operators, fielded searching)



                               …OR…


©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   201
Site Search Analytics:
Benefits for metadata development
Provides a source of terms for the creation of
  vocabularies
Provides a sense of how needs are expressed
      •  Jargon (e.g., “lorry” vs. “truck”)
      •  Syntax (e.g., Boolean, natural language, keyword)
Informs decisions on which vocabularies to
  develop/implement (e.g., thesaurus, spell-
  checker)




©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   202
Site Search Analytics: Benefits for
content analysis
Identifies content
  that can’t be
  found
Identifies content
  gaps
Creation of “Best
  Bets” to address
  common queries




©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   203
Site Search Analytics:
Pros and cons
Benefits
       •    Data is real, comprehensive, available (usually)
       •    High volume
       •    Can track sessions
       •    Non-intrusive
Drawbacks
       •  Lack of good commercial analysis tools
       •  Lack of standards makes it difficult to merge
          multiple search logs (not to mention server logs)
       •  More difficult to merge with other logs (e.g. server)
       •  Doesn’t tell you why users did what they did

©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   204
Site Search Analytics:
Enterprise context
Makes case for EIA; usually demonstrates
  that users are requesting things that
  aren’t tied to departmental divisions
  (e.g., policies, products)
Informs “Best Bets”
Informs synonym creation
Limited value if not analyzing merged logs



©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   205
EIA Research Methods Takeaways

Challenges
      •  Many traditional methods can be adapted to the
         enterprise environment
      •  But sampling, geography, volume and politics
         force a less scientific, more pragmatic approach
      •  Also force greater reliance on automated tools
We need new methods
      •  Focus on minimizing politics and geographic
         distribution
      •  Most are untested
      •  Information architects need to be willing to
         experiment, innovate, and live with mistakes

©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   206
EIA Framework




©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   207
EIA and the Enterprise:
Phased, modular model
Phasing is not just about roll-out and
 timing
Should be overarching philosophy for EIA
 initiatives
       •  We can phase in whom we work with
       •  We can phase in whom we hire to do EIA
          work
       •  We can modularize what types of EIA we
          do
       •  We can phase in what degree of
          centralization we can support
©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   208
Why a Phased Model?
Because mandates don’t work
“Just do it!”…
       •  …all (e.g., all subsites)
       •  …now (e.g., in 3-6 months)
       •  …with few resources and people (e.g., one sad
          webmaster)
       •  …in a way that minimizes organizational learning
          (e.g., hire an outside consultant or agency)
Results of the mandated “solution”: completely
 cosmetic, top-down information architecture



©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   209
The EIA Framework
Seven issues
1.  EIA governance: how the work and staff are
    structured
2.  EIA services: how work gets done in an enterprise
    environment
3.  EIA staffing: who handles strategic and tactical
    efforts
4.  EIA funding model: how it gets paid for
5.  EIA marketing and communications: how it gets
    adopted by the enterprise
6.  EIA workflow: how it gets maintained
7.  EIA design and timing: what gets created and
    when


©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   210
The EIA Framework
Critical goals
Re-balance the enterprise’s in-house IA
  expertise to support an appropriate
  degree of centralization
Enable slow, scaleable, sustainable
  growth of internal EIA expertise
Create ownership/maintenance
  mechanism for enterprise-wide
  aspects of IA (currently orphaned)
Ensure institutional knowledge is retained

©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   211
EIA Governance:
Questions
What sort of individuals or group should
 be responsible for the EIA?
Where should they be located within the
 organization? How should they address
 strategic issues? Tactical issues?
Can they get their work done with carrots,
 sticks, or both as they try to work with
 somewhat autonomous business units?


©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   212
EIA Governance:
A separate business unit 1/2
Logical outgrowth of
      •  Web or portal team
      •  Design or branding group
      •  E-services, e-business or e-commerce unit
Goals
      •    Ensure that IA is primary goal of the unit
      •    Retain organizational learning
      •    Avoid political baggage
      •    Maintain independence


©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   213
EIA Governance:
A separate business unit 2/2
Ambitious, fool-hardy, unrealistic?
 Necessary!
      •  Models of successful new organizational
         efforts often start as separate entities
      •  Alternatives (none especially attractive)
      •  Be a part of IT or information services
      •  Be a part of marketing and
         communications
      •  Be a part of each business unit


©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   214
EIA Governance:
Balancing strategic and tactical
Strategic: Model on Board of Directors
      •  Represent key constituencies
      •  Track record with successes, mistakes with
         organization’s prior centralization efforts
      •  Mix of visionaries, people who understand
         money
Tactical: Start with staff who “do stuff”
      •  Extend as necessary by outsourcing
      •  Enables logical planning of hiring and use
         of consultants and contractors

©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved.   215
Enterprise Information Architecture:  Because users don't care about your org chart
Enterprise Information Architecture:  Because users don't care about your org chart
Enterprise Information Architecture:  Because users don't care about your org chart
Enterprise Information Architecture:  Because users don't care about your org chart
Enterprise Information Architecture:  Because users don't care about your org chart
Enterprise Information Architecture:  Because users don't care about your org chart
Enterprise Information Architecture:  Because users don't care about your org chart
Enterprise Information Architecture:  Because users don't care about your org chart
Enterprise Information Architecture:  Because users don't care about your org chart
Enterprise Information Architecture:  Because users don't care about your org chart
Enterprise Information Architecture:  Because users don't care about your org chart
Enterprise Information Architecture:  Because users don't care about your org chart
Enterprise Information Architecture:  Because users don't care about your org chart
Enterprise Information Architecture:  Because users don't care about your org chart
Enterprise Information Architecture:  Because users don't care about your org chart
Enterprise Information Architecture:  Because users don't care about your org chart
Enterprise Information Architecture:  Because users don't care about your org chart
Enterprise Information Architecture:  Because users don't care about your org chart
Enterprise Information Architecture:  Because users don't care about your org chart
Enterprise Information Architecture:  Because users don't care about your org chart
Enterprise Information Architecture:  Because users don't care about your org chart
Enterprise Information Architecture:  Because users don't care about your org chart
Enterprise Information Architecture:  Because users don't care about your org chart
Enterprise Information Architecture:  Because users don't care about your org chart
Enterprise Information Architecture:  Because users don't care about your org chart
Enterprise Information Architecture:  Because users don't care about your org chart
Enterprise Information Architecture:  Because users don't care about your org chart
Enterprise Information Architecture:  Because users don't care about your org chart
Enterprise Information Architecture:  Because users don't care about your org chart
Enterprise Information Architecture:  Because users don't care about your org chart
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Enterprise Information Architecture: Because users don't care about your org chart

  • 1. Enterprise Information Architecture Because Users Don’t Care About Your Org Chart March 30, 2010 Merit Network Louis Rosenfeld www.louisrosenfeld.com ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 1
  • 2. About Me Independent IA consultant and blogger (www.louisrosenfeld.com) Founder, Rosenfeld Media, UX publishing house (www.rosenfeldmedia.com) Work primarily with Fortune 500s and other large enterprises Co-author, Information Architecture for the World Wide Web (1998, 2002, 2006) Founder and past director, the Information Architecture Institute (www.iainstitute.org) and User Experience Network (www.uxnet.org) Background in librarianship/information science ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 2
  • 3. Seminar Agenda Welcome/Introduction Topic: Top-Down Navigation Break Topic: Bottom-Up Navigation (content modeling) Exercise #1: Metadata Topic: Bottom-Up Navigation (metadata) Lunch Topic: Search Exercise #2: Search Analytics Break Topic: Research Methods Topic: Governance and Organizational Change ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 3
  • 4. Introduction ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 4
  • 5. Introduction: IA in one slide Definition: the art and science of structuring, organizing and labeling information to help people find and manage information •  Balances characteristics and needs of users, content and context •  Top down (questions) & bottom up (answers) ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 5
  • 6. Introduction: Only one IA rule Pareto’s Principle (“the 80/20 rule”) •  20% of content satisfies 80% of users’ needs •  20% of possible IA options address 80% of content •  20% of IA options address 80% of users’ needs IA’s goal: figure out which 20% No other rules, just guidelines ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 6
  • 7. Introduction: IA is about priorities ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 7
  • 8. What an Enterprise Is Large, distributed, decentralized organization made up of multiple business units Distributed •  Functionally in many different “businesses” (e.g., HR vs. communications, or hardware vs. software) •  Geographically Decentralized •  Large degree of authority and responsibility resides in hands of business units in practice (if not officially) •  Business units often own significant infrastructure (technical, staff, expertise) ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 8
  • 9. IA and EIA: The differences The “enterprise challenge”: providing centralized access to information in a large, decentralized, distributed environment Information often organized by business function (e.g., “org chart”), not in ways users think Not “textbook” IA; highly dependent on business context ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 9
  • 10. The Challenge of EIA: Competing trends Trend toward autonomy •  Cheap, easy-to-use democratizing technology •  Human tendency toward autonomy Trend toward centralization •  Users’ desire for single-point of access •  Management’s desire to control costs and communications These tend to cancel each other out, getting us nowhere Result: content “silos” and user confusion ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 10
  • 11. Indicators of Problematic EIA: Intranet glitches “How come I didn’t know your department was developing a product similar to ours?” “Why couldn’t we find any relevant case studies to show that important prospect?” “Why do our sales and support staff keep giving our customers inconsistent information?” ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 11
  • 12. Indicators of Problematic EIA: External-facing site glitches “Our customers think we’re still in the widget business; after all these M&As, why don’t they realize that we’ve diversified?” “We have so many great products that go together; why don’t we cross-sell more?” “Customers keep asking for product support through our sales channel; why don’t they use the site’s FAQs and tech support content?” ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 12
  • 13. The Holy Grail: Cutting against the political grain ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 13
  • 14. Example: Expense Reporting ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 14
  • 15. So How Do We Get There? Let it go •  There is no single solution •  Redemption lies within phased, modular, evolving approaches that respect 80/20 rule Your friends •  Straw men •  Your colleagues and professional networks This seminar provides straw men for •  EIA design •  EIA methods •  EIA team design and governance ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 15
  • 16. Top-Down Navigation ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 16
  • 17. Top-Down Navigation Roadmap Main page Site hierarchy Site map Site index Selective navigation ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 17
  • 18. Top-Down Challenges Top-down IA •  Anticipates questions that users arrive with •  Provides overview of content, entry points to major navigational approaches Issues •  What do we do about main pages? •  Portals: the answer? •  Other ways to navigate from the top down •  The dangers of taxonomies ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 18
  • 19. Top-Down Evolution: Univ. Michigan example 1/2 ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 19
  • 20. Top-Down Evolution: Univ. Michigan example 2/2 ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 20
  • 21. Portal Solutions: Why they fail 1/2 Organizational challenges •  Fixation on cosmetic, political •  Inability to enforce style guide changes, portal adoption •  Lack of ownership of centralizing initiatives, or ownership in wrong hands (usually IT) Information architecture challenges •  Taxonomy design required for successful portal tool implementation •  Always harder than people imagine •  Taxonomies break down as they get closer to local content (domains become specialized) ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 21
  • 22. Portal Solutions: Why they fail 2/2 Challenges for users •  Portals are shallow (only one or two levels deep) •  Poor interface design •  Users don’t typically personalize More in James Robertson’s “Taking a business- centric approach to portals” (http:// www.steptwo.com.au/papers/ kmc_businessportals/index.html) ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 22
  • 23. Top-Down Navigation: Design approaches Main pages Supplementary navigation •  Tables of contents •  Site indices •  Guide pages Taxonomies for browsing •  Varieties: product, business function, topical •  Topic pages ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 23
  • 24. Top-Down Navigation: Main pages Often 80% of discussion of EIA dedicated to main page •  Important real estate •  But there are other important areas •  Navigational pages •  Search interface •  Search results •  Page design (templates, contextual navigation) Divert attention from main pages by creating alternatives, new real estate: supplementary navigation ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 24
  • 25. Top-Down Navigation: Supplementary navigation Examples •  Site maps/TOC •  Site indices Benefits: •  Create new real estate •  Can evolve and drive evolution from org-chart centered design to user-centered design •  Relatively low cost to initially implement Drawbacks: •  Often unwieldy for largest enterprises (not at IBM, Microsoft, failure at Vanguard) ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 25
  • 26. Top-Down Navigation: Site maps Condensed versions of site hierarchy •  Hierarchical list of terms and links •  Primarily used for site orientation •  Indirectly cut across subsites by presenting multi- departmental content in one place •  But still usually reflects org chart Alternative plan •  Use site map as test bed for migration to user- centric design •  Apply card sorting exercises on second and third level nodes •  Result may cut across organizational boundaries ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 26
  • 27. Site Map: Visually ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 27
  • 28. Site Map: State of Nebraska Majority of links reflect org chart ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 28
  • 29. Site Map: State of Kentucky Evolving toward more user- centered, topical approach ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 29
  • 30. Top-Down Navigation: Site indices Flat (or nearly flat) alpha list of terms and links Benefits •  Support orientation and known-item searching •  Alternative “flattened” view of content •  Can unify content across subsites Drawbacks •  Require significant expertise, maintenance •  May not be worth the effort if table of contents and search are already available Specialized indices may be preferable (shorter, narrower domain, focused audience) ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 30
  • 31. Site Index: Visually ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 31
  • 32. Site Index: Am. Society of Indexers example Full site index •  @1000 entries for smallish site •  Too large to easily browse •  Replace with search? ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 32
  • 33. Specialized Site Index: CDC example Not a full site index Focuses on health topics •  Narrow domain •  Specialized terminology •  Possibly still too large to browse ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 33
  • 34. Specialized Site Index: PeopleSoft example Product focus •  A large undertaking at PeopleSoft •  High value to users ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 34
  • 35. “Mature” Site Index: Informed by search analytics ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 35
  • 36. Top-Down Navigation: Guides Single page containing selective set of important links embedded in narrative text Address important, common user needs •  Highlight content for a specific audience •  Highlight content on a specific topic •  Explain how to complete a process •  Can work as FAQs (and FAQs can serve as interface to guides) Benefits •  Technically easy to create (single HTML page) •  Cut across departmental subsites •  Gap fillers; complement comprehensive methods of navigation and search •  Can be timely (e.g., news-oriented guides, seasonal guides) •  Minimize political headaches by creating new real estate ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 36
  • 37. Guides: Visually ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 37
  • 38. Guides: Vanguard example 1/2 ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 38
  • 39. Guides: Vanguard example 2/2 ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 39
  • 40. Guides: IBM example ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 40
  • 41. Top-Down Navigation: Topic Pages “Selective taxonomy improvement” •  Portions of a taxonomy that expand beyond navigational value •  Help knit together enterprise content deeper down in taxonomy New “real estate” can be used by •  Individual business units (to reduce pressure on main page) or… •  Cross-departmental initiatives ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 41
  • 42. Topic Pages: CDC example Subtopics now comprise only a small portion of page ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 42
  • 43. Top-Down Navigation: Taxonomies & portals Can a single taxonomy unify an enterprise site? •  First: can one be built at all? •  Software tools don’t solve problems (see metadata discussion) Approaches •  Multiple taxonomies that each cover a broad swath of enterprise content: audience, subject, task/process, etc. •  “Two-step” approach: 1.  Build shallow, broad taxonomy that will answer “where will I find the information I need?” 2.  Rely on subsite taxonomies to answer “where in this area will I find the information I need?” ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 43
  • 44. Top-Down Navigation: Impacts on the enterprise Potential of “small steps” around which to build more centralized enterprise efforts •  Site map and site index creation and maintenance •  Guide and topic page creation and maintenance •  Large editorial role, minimal technical requirements for both May be preferable to tackle more ambitious areas much later •  Developing and maintaining top-level taxonomy •  Connecting high-level and low-level taxonomies ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 44
  • 45. Top-Down Navigation Roadmap Main page Site hierarchy Site map Site index Selective navigation ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 45
  • 46. Top-Down Navigation Takeaways Main pages and portals: Bypass for now, add guides over time Site hierarchy/taxonomy: Start shallow, "simple" (e.g., products); add progressively harder taxonomies (work toward faceted approach) Site map/ToC: Use as a staging ground for a more topical approach Site index: Move from generalized to specialized around a single topic, or augment with frequent search queries/best bets work Guides: Start with a handful, then expand and rotate based on seasonality or other criteria of relevance ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 46
  • 47. Bottom-Up Navigation ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 47
  • 48. Bottom-Up Navigation Roadmap Content modeling Metadata development Metadata tagging ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 48
  • 49. Bottom-Up Navigation: The basics Focuses on extracting answers from content •  How do I find my way through this content? •  Where can I go from here? Goals •  Answers “rise to the surface” •  Leverage CMS for reuse and syndication of content across sites and platforms •  Improve contextual navigation •  Increase the effectiveness of search ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 49
  • 50. Content Modeling: The heart of bottom-up navigation Content models •  Used to convey meaning within select, high-value content areas •  Accommodate inter-connectedness Same as data or object modeling? Absolutely not! •  Many distinctions between data and semi- structured text •  Text makes up majority of enterprise sites ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 50
  • 51. Content Modeling: The basics Based on patterns revealed during content inventory and analysis What makes up a content model? 1.  Content objects 2.  Metadata (attributes and values) 3.  Contextual links Applies to multiple levels of granularity •  Content objects •  Individual documents ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 51
  • 52. Content Modeling: We’re already doing it at page level album page = title/artist/release + tracks + cover image ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 52
  • 53. Content Modeling: Content analysis reveals patterns album pages artist bios artist descriptions album reviews ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 53
  • 54. Content Modeling: Answer some questions What contextual navigation should exist between album pages artist bios these content objects? (see Instone’s “Navigation Stress Test”--http://user- artist descriptions album reviews experience.org/uefiles/ navstress/ ) Are there missing content objects? Can we connect objects automatically? ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 54
  • 55. Content Modeling: Fleshing out the model concert calendar album pages artist descriptions TV listings album reviews discography artist bios ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 55
  • 56. Content Modeling: Connecting with metadata, rules Content …link to other Content Objects… …by leveraging common Objects… Metadata Attributes album page album review, discography, artist Album Name, Artist Name, Label, Release Date… album review album page Album Name, Artist Name, Review Author, Source, Pub Date… discography album review, artist description Artist Name, Album Name, Release Date… artist artist bio, discography, concert Artist Name, Desc Author, description calendar, TV listing Desc Date… artist bio artist description Artist Name, Individual Artist Name… concert artist description Artist Name, Tour, Venue, calendar Date, Time… TV listing artist description Artist Name, Channel, Date, Time… ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 56
  • 57. Content Modeling: Problematic borders concert calendar album pages artist descriptions TV listings album reviews discography artist bios ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 57
  • 58. Content Modeling: When to use Use only for high value content High value content attributes based on users, content, context, including •  High volume •  Highly dynamic •  Consistent structure •  Available metadata •  Available content management infrastructure •  Willing content owners Much content can and will remain outside formal content models ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 58
  • 59. Content Modeling: Steps for developing a model 1.  Determine key audiences (who’s using it?) 2.  Perform content inventory and analysis (what do we have?) 3.  Determine document and object types (what are the objects?) 4.  Determine metadata classes (what are the objects about?) 5.  Determine contextual linking rules (where do the objects lead us to next?) ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 59
  • 60. Content Modeling: Content object types 1/2 List known object types For each audience: •  Are there types that don’t fit? •  Examples: company executive bios, Q&A columns •  Venue reviews may be part of a separate content model ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 60
  • 61. Content Modeling: Content object types 2/2 For each audience (continued): •  Gap analysis: are there types missing that users might expect? •  Examples: Gig reviews, Buy the CD, Links to music in the same genre •  Which types are most important to each audience? •  Fans of the band: Interviews with the band members •  Casual listener: Samples of the CD tracks ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 61
  • 62. Content Modeling: Metadata 1/2 Determine which objects would benefit from metadata Develop three types of metadata •  Descriptive •  Intrinsic •  Administrative ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 62
  • 63. Content Modeling: Metadata 2/2 Aim to balance utility and cost •  Answer most important questions: who, what, where, why, when, how? •  Cost-benefit analysis •  Development and maintenance costs of controlled vocabularies/thesauri •  Ability of in-house staff to apply properly ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 63
  • 64. Content Modeling: Contextual linking rules Are there specific objects for which these questions arise again and again? •  Where would I go from here? •  What would I want to do next? •  How would I learn more? You have a rule if •  The questions apply consistently •  The answers work consistently •  Metadata can be leveraged to connect questions and answers Unidirectional links or bidirectional? ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 64
  • 65. Content Modeling: Impacts on the enterprise Content models are a means for tying together content across business unit boundaries Content modeling is modular; over time, content models can be connected across the enterprise Major benefits to users who get beyond main page Can help justify CMS investments Not all content areas and owners are appropriate to work with ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 65
  • 66. Content Modeling: Putting it all together ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 66
  • 67. CMS Selection: EIA needs Support metadata management (Interwoven) Support shared metadata workflow •  Author creation/submission/tagging (distributed) •  Editorial tagging (centralized) •  Editorial review (centralized) Ability to support contextual linking logic ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 67
  • 68. Metadata: What is metadata? Data about data Information which describes a document, a file or a CD Common metadata •  CD information: title, composer, artist, date •  MS Word document properties: time last saved, company, author ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 68
  • 69. Metadata: Three types 1.  Intrinsic: metadata that an object holds about itself (e.g., file name or size) 2.  Descriptive: metadata that describes the object (e.g., subject, title, or audience) 3.  Administrative: metadata used to manage the object (e.g., time last saved, review date, owner) ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 69
  • 70. Metadata: Common sources Vocabularies from other parts of your organization (e.g., research library) Competitors Commercial sources (see www.taxonomywarehouse.com) Your site’s users •  Search analytics •  Folksonomies •  User studies (e.g., free listing, card sorting) ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 70
  • 71. Metadata: Value for the Enterprise 1/2 Search: cluster or filter the search by metadata, like title or keyword Browse: create topical indexes by aggregating pages with the same metadata Personalization and customization: show content to an employee based on their role or position in the company, e.g. engineer or manager ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 71
  • 72. Metadata: Value for the Enterprise 2/2 Contextual linking: create relationships between individual or classes of content objects (e.g., cross-marketing on llbean.com) The purpose is to connect •  Content to content •  Users to content To provide value, metadata requires consistency (structural and semantic) ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 72
  • 73. Metadata: Enterprise big picture ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 73
  • 74. Metadata: Scaling problems Barriers to enterprise metadata development: •  Volume of metadata vocabs./silos •  Complexity of semantic relationships (beyond synonyms) ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 74
  • 75. Metadata attributes: Easy to difficult 1/2 Level of Metadata Comments Difficulty Attribute Easy Business unit These are typically already names available and standardized Easy to Chronology Variations in formats (e.g., Moderate 12/31/07 versus 31/12/07) usually can be addressed by software Moderate to Place names Although many standards exist Difficult (e.g., state abbreviations and postal codes), many enterprises (and their business units) use custom terms for regions (such as sales territories) ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 75
  • 76. Metadata attributes: Easy to difficult 2/2 Level of Metadata Comments Difficulty Attribute Moderate to Product Product granularity can vary Difficult names greatly; marketing may think in terms of product families; sales in terms of items with SKU numbers, and support in terms of product parts that can be sold individually Difficult Audiences Audiences, such as customers or types of employees, vary widely from unit to unit Difficult Topics The most ambiguous type of metadata; difficult for individuals, much less business units, to come to agreement on topical metadata ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 76
  • 77. Metadata: Structural consistency Standard formats and approaches enable interoperability, which enables sharing of metadata. Examples •  RDF (Resource Description Format) •  Topic Maps •  Dublin Core •  OAI (Open Archives Initiative) Sources •  Academia/scholarly publishing world •  Little from data management world ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 77
  • 78. Metadata: RDF (Resource Description Format) A syntax for expressing semantic relationships Basic components 1.  Resource 3. Value 2.  Property type 4. Property 2 1 3 4 From Andy Powell: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/presentations/ukolug98/paper/intro.html ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 78
  • 79. Metadata: Topic Maps Potential syntax for content modeling, semantic webs Most simply, made up of associations topics (e.g., “Lucca”, “Italy”), occurrences (e.g., “map”, “book”), and associations (e.g., topics “…is in…”, “…written by…”) Source: Tao of Topic Maps, Steve Pepper (http://www.ontopia.net/ topicmaps/materials/ tao.html) occurrences ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 79
  • 80. Metadata: The Dublin Core A schema for expressing semantic relationships Can use HTML or RDF syntax Useful tool (or model) for creating document surrogates (e.g., Best Bet records) A standard, but not a religious one •  Selecting fewer attributes may be a necessity in enterprise environment •  Attribute review can be useful as an enterprise- wide exercise ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 80
  • 81. Metadata: Dublin Core elements 1/2 Title: A name given to the resource Creator: An entity primarily responsible for making the content of the resource Subject: A topic of the content of the resource Description: An account of the content of the resource Publisher: An entity responsible for making the resource available Contributor: An entity responsible for making contributions to the content of the resource Date: A date of an event in the lifecycle of the resource ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 81
  • 82. Metadata: Dublin Core elements 2/2 Type: The nature or genre of the content of the resource Format: The physical or digital manifestation of the resource Identifier: An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Source: A Reference to a resource from which the present resource is derived Language: A language of the intellectual content of the resource Relation: A reference to a related resource Coverage: The extent or scope of the content of the resource Rights: Information about rights held in and over the resource ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 82
  • 83. Metadata: Dublin Core in HTML Dublin Core elements identified with “DC” prefix From Andy Powell: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/presentations/ukolug98/paper/intro.html ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 83
  • 84. Metadata: Dublin Core and RDF Syntax and schema combination is useful But where are the metadata values? From Andy Powell: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/presentations/ukolug98/paper/intro.html ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 84
  • 85. Metadata: OAI and metadata harvesting OAI: Open Archives Initiative •  Comes from academic publishing world •  Provides means for central registration of “confederate repositories” •  Repositories use Dublin Core; requests between service and data providers via HTTP; replies (results) encoded in XML Metadata harvesting •  Enables improved searching across compliant distributed repositories •  Does not address semantic merging of metadata (i.e., vocabulary control) ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 85
  • 86. Metadata: Semantic consistency 1/2 Provided through controlled vocabularies. What is a controlled vocabulary? •  A list of preferred and variant terms •  A subset of natural language Why control vocabulary? •  Language is Ambiguous •  Synonyms, homonyms, antonyms, contronyms, etc. (e.g., truck, lorry, semi, pickup, UTE) ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 86
  • 87. Metadata: Semantic consistency 2/2 Users Example Personal Digital Assistant Synonyms Handheld Computer "Alternate" Spellings Persenal Digitel Asistent Abbreviations / Acronyms PDA Communication Chasm Broader Terms Wireless, Computers Narrower Terms PalmPilot, PocketPC Related Terms WindowsCE, Cell Phones Documents and Applications Control vocabulary…so your users don’t have to! ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 87
  • 88. Metadata: Semantic relationships Three types 1.  Equivalence: Variant terms with same meaning (e.g., abbreviations and synonyms) 2.  Hierarchical: Broader term, narrower term relationships 3.  Associative: Related terms that are related to each other ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 88
  • 89. Metadata: Levels of control (Vocabularies) Synonym Authority Classification Thesauri Rings Files Schemes Simple Complex Equivalence Hierarchical Associative (Relationships) ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 89
  • 90. Metadata semantic relationships: Hard to hardest Level of Type of Examples Difficulty Relationship Hard Synonymous Synonym rings and authority lists Harder Hierarchical Classification schemes Hardest Associative Thesauri ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 90
  • 91. Metadata: Synonym rings Used in many search engines to expand the number of results Words that are similar to each other are linked together Example for a multinational company •  Annual leave (Australia), the holidays (US), public holidays (Australia, US), vacation (US), bank holidays (UK), holiday (Australia and UK), personal leave (all) ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 91
  • 92. Metadata: Authority files Pick list of the authorized words to use in a field Can have some equivalence relationships Example using authors •  Poe, Edgar Allan--USE FOR Poe, E.A. •  Poe, E.A.--USE Poe, Edgar Allan ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 92
  • 93. Metadata: Classification schemes Classification •  Systematic arrangement of knowledge, usually hierarchical •  Placement of objects into a scheme which makes sense to the user and relates them to other objects Two types of classification schemes •  Enumerative classification: hierarchical organization into which objects are placed •  Faceted classification: organization by facets or attributes that describe the object ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 93
  • 94. Metadata: Enumerative classification Really good to classify small numbers of objects or objects that can live in only one place Provides good browsing structure Can be polyhierarchical, where objects live in many places Best known: the taxonomy of life, Dewey Decimal Classification, Library of Congress Classification Most familiar on the Web: Yahoo!, Open Directory ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 94
  • 95. Metadata: Enumerative classification example ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 95
  • 96. Metadata: Faceted classification 1/2 Describes the object with numerous facets or attributes Each facet could have a separate controlled vocabulary of its own Can mix and match the facets to create a browsing structure Easier to manage the controlled vocabularies ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 96
  • 97. Metadata: Faceted classification 2/2 Facets for a roast chicken recipe •  Preparation: Roast / bake •  Main ingredient: Chicken •  Course: Main dish Drawbacks of faceted classification •  Too many facets attached to an object can make indexing hard to do •  Browsing facets may not be as clear as browsing a hierarchy; many paths to the same object ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 97
  • 98. Metadata: Faceted classification example ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 98
  • 99. Metadata: Faceted classification example ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 99
  • 100. Metadata: What is a thesaurus? Traditional use •  Dictionary of synonyms (Roget’s) •  From one word to many words Information retrieval context •  A controlled vocabulary in which equivalence, hierarchical, and associative relationships are identified for purposes of improved retrieval •  From many words to one word ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 100
  • 101. Metadata: Thesaurus entry example ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 101
  • 102. Enterprise Metadata: Challenges Two barriers to enterprise metadata 1.  Interoperability (structural) 2.  Merging enables controlled vocabularies to work as a whole (semantic) Interoperability must come before merging (merging requires knowledge of which vocabularies to merge) Few standards in use ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 102
  • 103. Enterprise Metadata: Structural approaches If directly marking up documents, this approach is probably impractical in the enterprise Better uses: •  Limited high value documents (e.g., content models) •  Document surrogates (e.g., Best Bet records) ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 103
  • 104. Enterprise Metadata: Merging vocabularies Extremely difficult, and currently rare Mostly found in libraries, academia, scholarly publishing, and other resource-poor environments Examples, hard to hardest •  Cross-walking vocabularies •  Switching vocabularies •  Meta-thesaurus •  Single thesaurus ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 104
  • 105. Merging Vocabularies: Vocabulary cross-walking Map terms peer-to-peer between individual vocabularies •  Primarily handles synonyms, not relationships •  Can be handled manually or through automated means (pattern-matching) Doesn’t scale well beyond two or three vocabularies ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 105
  • 106. Merging Vocabularies: Switching vocabulary A single vocabulary that maps to existing vocabularies (primarily synonyms) Similar to cross-walking, but better at handling translation when there are more than two or three vocabularies to connect ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 106
  • 107. Merging Vocabularies: Meta-thesaurus A switching vocabulary which also includes thesaural relationships (essentially a thesaurus of thesauri) Example: National Library of Medicine’s UMLS (Unified Medical Language System) •  Merges over 100 vocabularies •  Describes fairly homogeneous domain (medical literature) for fairly homogeneous audience (health science professionals) ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 107
  • 108. Merging Vocabularies: Single unified thesaurus Highly impractical in enterprise context ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 108
  • 109. Metadata: What is metadata? Data about data Information which describes a document, a file or a CD Common metadata •  CD information: title, composer, artist, date •  MS Word document properties: time last saved, company, author ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 109
  • 110. Metadata: Three types 1.  Intrinsic: metadata that an object holds about itself (e.g., file name or size) 2.  Descriptive: metadata that describes the object (e.g., subject, title, or audience) 3.  Administrative: metadata used to manage the object (e.g., time last saved, review date, owner) ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 110
  • 111. Metadata: Common sources Vocabularies from other parts of your organization (e.g., research library) Competitors Commercial sources (see www.taxonomywarehouse.com) Your site’s users •  Search analytics •  Folksonomies •  User studies (e.g., free listing, card sorting) ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 111
  • 112. Metadata: Big org, big picture ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 112
  • 113. Metadata: Scaling problems Barriers to enterprise metadata development: •  Volume of metadata vocabs./silos •  Complexity of semantic relationships (beyond synonyms) ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 113
  • 114. Metadata in the Large Org: Challenges Two barriers to enterprise metadata 1.  Interoperability (structural) 2.  Merging enables controlled vocabularies to work as a whole (semantic) Interoperability must come before merging (which requires knowledge of which vocabularies to merge) Few standards in use ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 114
  • 115. Metadata attributes: Easy to difficult 1/2 Level of Metadata Comments Difficulty Attribute Easy Business unit These are typically already names available and standardized Easy to Chronology Variations in formats (e.g., Moderate 12/31/07 versus 31/12/07) usually can be addressed by software Moderate to Place names Although many standards exist Difficult (e.g., state abbreviations and postal codes), many enterprises (and their business units) use custom terms for regions (such as sales territories) ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 115
  • 116. Metadata attributes: Easy to difficult 2/2 Level of Metadata Comments Difficulty Attribute Moderate to Product Product granularity can vary Difficult names greatly; marketing may think in terms of product families; sales in terms of items with SKU numbers, and support in terms of product parts that can be sold individually Difficult Audiences Audiences, such as customers or types of employees, vary widely from unit to unit Difficult Topics The most ambiguous type of metadata; difficult for individuals, much less business units, to come to agreement on topical metadata ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 116
  • 117. Metadata: Levels of control (Vocabularies) Synonym Authority Classification Thesauri Rings Files Schemes Simple Complex Equivalence Hierarchical Associative (Relationships) ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 117
  • 118. Metadata semantic relationships: Hard to hardest Level of Type of Examples Difficulty Relationship Hard Synonymous Synonym rings and authority lists Harder Hierarchical Classification schemes Hardest Associative Thesauri ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 118
  • 119. Metadata: Strategy for large orgs 1/2 Coordinate to ensure: •  Structural interoperability from the start •  Semantic mergability over time •  Vocabulary control and maintenance through both manual and automated means •  A workflow model and policies to support: •  Decentralized tagging and vocabulary updating (through suggestions of new terms) •  Centralized review and maintenance ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 119
  • 120. Enterprise Metadata: Strategy for large orgs 2/2 “Serious metadata” is beyond the means of most enterprises •  Encourage local (e.g., departmental) vocabulary development •  Provides organizational learning and local benefit •  Enterprise-wide, start with “easier” vocabularies; work your way to harder ones over time; suggested sequence: 1.  Business functions 2.  Products 3.  Topics ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 120
  • 121. Bottom-Up Navigation Roadmap Content modeling Metadata development Metadata tagging ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 121
  • 122. Bottom-Up Navigation Takeaways 1/3 Content models •  Use to support contextual navigation •  Apply only to homogenous, high-value content •  Won't transfer easily across silos and will require significant metadata development ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 122
  • 123. Bottom-Up Navigation Takeaways 2/3 Metadata development •  Distinguish attributes (and structural interoperability) from values (and semantic merging) •  Costs and value both increase as these increase: •  Complexity of relationships between terms (equivalence=>hierarchical=>associative) •  Level of control (synonym rings=>authority files=>classification schemes=>thesauri) •  Think small: facets instead of a single taxonomy ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 123
  • 124. Bottom-Up Navigation Takeaways 3/3 Metadata tagging •  Make choices based on actual needs (e.g., content models) rather than exhaustive indexing •  Consider costs of application and upkeep •  Need for professional expertise •  Metadata is a moving target that matches other moving targets (users and content) ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 124
  • 125. EIA and Search ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 125
  • 126. EIA and Search Search systems are a natural enterprise IA tool •  Automated •  Crawls what you tell it to •  Doesn’t care about politics Problems with shrink-wrapped search tools •  Default settings, IT ownership minimize customization to fit the enterprise’s needs •  Results often not relevant, poorly presented Customization is the answer •  Within the realm of your team’s abilities •  … and if IT will allow it! ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 126
  • 127. EIA and Search: Visually ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 127
  • 128. Enterprise Search Design: Potential improvements Our focus: 1.  Clear interface 2.  Enhanced queries 3.  Improved results (relevance & presentation) Basic search system components ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 128
  • 129. Enterprise Search Roadmap Search interface Search queries Search results ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 129
  • 130. Search Interface Design: The “Box” The “Box” unifies IBM.com Consistent: •  Placement •  Design •  Labeling •  Functionality ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 130
  • 131. Search Interface Design: Combine interfaces when possible Will users understand? Two boxes bad, one box good, usually… ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 131
  • 132. Search Interface Design: The role of “advanced search” 1/2 Not a likely starting point for users who are searching Continued… ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 132
  • 133. Search Interface Design: The role of “advanced search” 2/2 Suggestions •  Use for specialized interfaces •  Reposition as “Revise Search” •  Don’t bother ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 133
  • 134. Contextualizing Search Help: Ebay example ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 134
  • 135. Search Interface and Queries: Functionality and visibility Hide functionality? Consider the “Google Effect,” human nature and the LCD Don’t hide it? •  Not if users expect it •  Legacy experience (e.g., Lexis-Nexis users) •  Specialization (e.g., patent searchers) •  Not if content allows/requires it •  Specialized content and applications (e.g., staff directory) ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 135
  • 136. The Query: Query language considerations Natural language •  Usually don’t show up in search logs •  Low priority, but nice to support Operators (Booleans, proximity, wild cards) •  Booleans: use default “AND” for multi-term queries •  Less forgiving than treating as phrase, more selective than “OR” •  Most retrieval algorithms will find results for just one term •  Rely on other approaches (e.g., filtering, clustering, Best Bets) to reduce search results overload •  Low priority: Proximity operators (e.g., “enterprise (W3) architecture”), wild cards (e.g., “wom*n”) ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 136
  • 137. The Query: Query building considerations Large potential benefits to improving “intelligence” behind search queries •  Adding semantic richness to queries allows for stronger searches without “touching” content •  Overrides “enterprise bias” embedded in content •  A centralized (enterprise-wide) process Query building approaches •  Spell checking: can be automated •  Stemming: can be automated •  Concept searching: requires manual effort •  Synonyms (via thesaurus): requires manual effort, but no need to be comprehensive ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 137
  • 138. Spell Checker: Sur La Table example A la Google… ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 138
  • 139. Stemming: IBM example IBM uses Fast Search ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 139
  • 140. Concept Searching: Social Security Admin. example SSA uses Convera ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 140
  • 141. Thesaural Search: ERIC example ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 141
  • 142. Enterprise Search Interface: Guidelines Hide functionality on initial enterprise-wide search Cast the net widely: rely on query builders to generate larger, higher quality result sets Use filtering/clustering to narrow Use Best Bets to ensure strong initial results ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 142
  • 143. Individual Search Results: Goals Enable users to quickly understand something about each document represented That “something”: confirm that a known-item has been found, or distinguish from other results Align to searching behaviors (determined through user testing, persona/scenario analysis, site search analytics) •  Known-item •  Open-ended/exploratory •  Comprehensive research ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 143
  • 144. Individual Search Results: Approaches Basic approaches •  Document titling •  Displaying appropriate elements for each result These approaches have value in any context, but especially useful in enterprise setting ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 144
  • 145. Document Titling: DaimlerChrysler example What do these document titles tell you? And what do they tell you about DaimlerChrysler? ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 145
  • 146. Document Titling: Ford example Descriptive document titles provide clear value ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 146
  • 147. Displaying Appropriate Elements: 1) Determine common elements Develop table of available elements (including metadata) for disparate documents and records •  Comes after content inventory and analysis Develop table of common elements •  Collapse similar elements (e.g., creator derived from author, artist, source…) •  Consider Dublin Core as model •  Include bare minimum elements (e.g., title and description) ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 147
  • 148. Displaying Appropriate Elements: 2) Select appropriate elements Choose common elements which match most common searching behaviors •  Known-item •  Open-ended •  Comprehensive research •  Etc. Considerations •  Which components are decision or action based? •  Which components are of informational value only? Display these elements for each search result ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 148
  • 149. Step #1: common content elements Step #2: select elements to display Step #1 Title Description Creator Topic Date Tech. Report Y Y Y Y Y Policy Y N Y Y Y Product Y Y N Y N Sheet FAQ Y N N Y N Step #2 Title Description Creator Topic Date Known-Item Y N Y N Y Open-Ended Y Y N Y Y ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 149
  • 150. Individual Search Results: Columbia University example Long display for open- …shorter display for ended searchers… known-item searchers ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 150
  • 151. Individual Search Results: What happens next? Augment with “next step” actions per result •  Open in separate window •  Get more like this •  Print •  Save •  Email Determine next steps through contextual inquiry ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 151
  • 152. Presenting Search Result Groups: Ranked results Difficulties with relevance ranking •  Depends on consistent elements across documents •  Term frequency-dependent approaches create an “apples and oranges effect” on ranking •  Google effect: benefits of popularity make less sense in enterprise context than in open web Consider alternatives •  Clustering and filtering •  Manually-derived results (aka “Best Bets”) ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 152
  • 153. Presenting Search Result Groups: Clustering & filtering “Our user studies show that all Category interfaces were more effective than List interfaces even when lists were augmented with category names for each result” —Dumais, Cutrell & Chen list results clustered results Consider using clustered results rather than list results ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 153
  • 154. Presenting Search Result Groups: Methods of clustering and filtering Use existing metadata and other distinctions (easier) •  Document type (via file format or CMS) •  Source (author, publisher, and business unit) •  Date (creation date? publication date? last update?) •  Security setting (via login, cookies) Use explicit metadata (harder) •  Language •  Product •  Audience •  Subject/topic ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 154
  • 155. Clustering by Topic: LL Bean example Category matches displayed rather than individual results ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 155
  • 156. Filtering by Source: BBC example Selecting a tab filters results ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 156
  • 157. Clustering by Content Type: c|net example Mention content modeling Results clustered in multiple content types ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 157
  • 158. Clustering by Language Example: PeopleSoft Netherlands Result clusters for Dutch and English ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 158
  • 159. Mixed Presentation of Search Results ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 159
  • 160. “Best Bets”: By popular demand Recommended links •  Ensure useful results for top X (50? 100?) most popular search queries •  Useful resources for each popular query are manually determined (guided by documented logic) •  Useful resources manually linked to popular queries; automatically displayed in result page ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 160
  • 161. “Best Bets” Example: BBC Logic for BBC Best Bets •  Is query a country name? (yes) •  Then do we have a country profile? (yes) •  Then do we have a language service? (yes) ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 161
  • 162. “Best Bets”: In the enterprise context Who does the work? •  Difficult to “assign” queries to different business units (e.g., “computing” means different things to different business units) •  Can serve as impetus for centralized effort Operational requirements •  Logic based on users’ needs (e.g., queries) and business rules •  Policy that assigns responsibilities, negotiates conflicts (e.g., who owns “computing”) Opportunity to align Best Bets to user-centric divisions (e.g., by audience: a “computing” best bet for researchers, another for IT staff) ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 162
  • 163. Enterprise Search: Impacts on the enterprise Designs •  Simple query builders (spell checker, stemming) •  Search-enhancing thesaurus Policies •  Best Bets design and selection •  Style guide (result titling, search interface implementation) Staffing needs •  Content inventory and analysis •  Interface design •  Work with IT on spidering, configuration issues •  Ongoing site search analytics •  Editorial (e.g., Best Bets creation) ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 163
  • 164. Search Tool Selection: EIA needs 1/2 To basic evaluation criteria (from SearchTools.com)… •  Price •  Platform •  Capacity •  Ease of installation •  Maintenance ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 164
  • 165. Search Tool Selection: EIA needs 2/2 …add: •  Ability to crawl deep/invisible web •  Ability to crawl multiple file formats •  Ability to crawl secure content •  API for customizing search results •  Work with CMS •  Duplicate result detection/removal •  Ability to tweak algorithms for results retrieval and presentation •  Federated search (merge results from multiple search engines/data sources) ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 165
  • 166. Enterprise Search Roadmap Search interface Search queries Search results ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 166
  • 167. Enterprise Search Takeaways Search interface and queries •  Consistent location and behavior •  Keep as simple as possible •  Use "refine search" interface instead of "advanced search" •  Soup up users’ queries (e.g., spell checking) Search results •  Feature appropriate elements for individual results •  Consider clustered results, especially if explicit, topical metadata are available •  Best bets results for top X common queries ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 167
  • 168. EIA Research Methods ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 168
  • 169. EIA Research Methods: Learn about these three areas Content, users and context drive: •  IA research •  IA design •  IA staffing •  IA education •  …and everything else ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 169
  • 170. EIA Research Methods: Sampling challenges How do you achieve representative samples in the face of these difficulties? •  Awareness: Who and what are out there? •  Volume: How much is there? Can we cover it all? •  Costs: Can we afford to investigate at this order of magnitude? •  Politics: Who will work with us? And who will try to get in the way? ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 170
  • 171. EIA Research Methods: Reliance on alternative techniques Standard techniques may not work in enterprise settings Alternatives often incorporate traditional methods and new technologies •  Web-based surveys (e.g., SurveyMonkey) •  Remote contextual inquiry and task analysis (via WebEx) •  Web-based “card” sorting (e.g., WebSort) •  Log analysis tools (e.g., WebTrends) ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 171
  • 172. EIA Research Methods: A closer look Content-oriented methods •  Content inventories •  Content value tiers Context-oriented methods •  Sampling stakeholders •  Departmental scorecard User-oriented methods •  2-D scorecard •  Automated metadata development •  Freelisting •  Site search analytics ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 172
  • 173. Content Inventory: Enterprise context Issues •  Even greater sampling challenges •  Content research is even more critical: serves as a cross-departmental exercise Approaches •  Balancing breadth and depth •  Talking to the right people •  Value-driven ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 173
  • 174. Multidimensional Inventory: Incomplete yet rich EIA requires balanced, iterative sampling (where CMS implementation may require exhaustive inventory) Balance scope (breadth) with granularity (depth) Extend inventory to all discernible areas of content, functionality: •  Portals and subsites •  Application (including search systems) •  Supplemental navigation (site maps, indices, guides) •  Major taxonomies •  Structured databases •  Existing content models •  Stakeholders ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 174
  • 175. Content Migration Strategy: Value Tier Approach Determine value tiers of content quality that make sense given your users/content/context •  Answer “what content is important to the enterprise?” •  Help determine what to add, maintain, delete How to do it? 1. Prioritize and weight quality criteria 2. Rate content areas 3. Cluster into tiers 4. Score content areas while performing content analysis ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 175
  • 176. Value Tier Approach: Potential quality criteria Select appropriate criteria for your business context, users, and content •  Authority •  Strategic value •  Currency •  Usability •  Popularity/usage •  Feasibility (i.e., “enlightened” content owners) •  Presence of quality existing metadata ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 176
  • 177. Value Tier Approach: Weighting and scoring ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 177
  • 178. Value Tier Approach: Prioritization ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 178
  • 179. Assessing Stakeholders: What to learn from them Strategic •  Understanding of business mission and goals, and fit with larger enterprise mission and goals •  Theory •  Practice •  Culture: tilt toward centralization or autonomy •  Political entanglements Practical •  Staff: IT, IA, design, authoring, editorial, usability, other UX (user experience) •  Resources: budget, content, captive audiences •  Technologies: search, portal, CMS ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 179
  • 180. Stakeholder Interviews: Triangulate your sample Org chart: business unit representatives •  Will provide strategic overview of content and whom it serves •  May have some knowledge of content •  More importantly, they know people who do in their units •  Additionally, political value in talking with unit reps Functional/audience-centered •  Subject Matter Experts (SMEs): represent power users; valuable for pointing out content that addresses major information needs •  Audience advocates (e.g., switchboard operators): can describe content with high volume usage ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 180
  • 181. Stakeholder Interviews: Finding the low-hanging fruit Assessment should reveal degree of “enlightenment” •  Early adopters •  Successful track records visible within the enterprise •  Understand/have experience with enterprise-wide initiatives •  Willingness to benefit the enterprise as a whole •  They just plain “get it” You’ve got to play to win: lack of interest and availability mean loss of influence ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 181
  • 182. Stakeholder Interviews: Indicators of enlightenment Technology assessment: who has/uses the “classic 3”? •  Portal •  Search engine •  CMS Staff review: who has relevant skills/expertise on their staff? IA review: what areas of enterprise site have strong architectures? These areas may indicate redundant costs, targets for centralization ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 182
  • 183. Involving Stakeholders: Departmental Report Card Information Architecture Dept. Dept. Dept. Heuristic 1 2 3 Supports orientation B- B B Supports known-item searching A C+ C Supports associative learning B C C Supports comprehensive research A B+ B Passes “navigation stress test” C F C+ … … … … ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 183
  • 184. “Safe” User Sampling: The 2D Scorecard Combines alternative, apolitical methods for determining segments to sample, e.g.: •  Role-based segmentation •  Demographic segmentation Distracts stakeholders from “org chart- itis,” to purify sampling Enables evaluation methods (e.g., task analysis, card sorting) ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 184
  • 185. The 2D Scorecard: Role-based segmentation Roles cut across political boundaries •  Profile core enterprise-wide business functions •  Why does the enterprise exist? •  Examples: Sell products, B2B or B2C activities, manufacture products, inform opinion, etc. •  Determine major “actors” in each process ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 185
  • 186. The 2D Scorecard: Demographic segmentation Standard, familiar measure; also cuts across political boundaries •  Gender •  Geography •  Age •  Income level •  Education level Your marketing department probably has this data already ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 186
  • 187. The 2D Scorecard: Combining roles & demographics TEST Demo. Demo. Demo. Demo. SAMPLE Profile Profile Profile Profile TOTAL SIZE A B C D Role 1 1 3 3 2 9 Role 2 2 2 1 1 6 Role 3 3 4 2 1 10 Role 4 0 3 4 0 7 TOTAL 6 12 10 4 32 ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 187
  • 188. The 2D Scorecard: Incorporating contextual bias Role/demographic “scorecard” is pure •  Serves as a structure that doesn’t have to change substantially •  But how to incorporate stakeholder bias? Stakeholder bias can be accommodated •  Poll/interview stakeholders to determine how cell values should change •  Axes and totals stay mostly the same •  Distraction is our friend ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 188
  • 189. The 2D Scorecard: After stakeholder input TEST Demo. Demo. Demo. Demo. SAMPLE Profile Profile Profile Profile TOTAL SIZE A B C D Role 1 1 2 5 1 9 Role 2 1 1 3 1 6 Role 3 3 4 2 1 10 Role 4 0 3 3 1 7 TOTAL 5 10 13 4 32 ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 189
  • 190. Maintaining a User Pool: Build your own for fun and power Through automated surveys, lower level information architect built an enterprise- wide pool of 1,500 users •  Prescreened by demographics and skills •  Provided him with substantial leverage with others who wanted access to users •  He just got there first and did the obvious More information: http://louisrosenfeld.com/ home/bloug_archive/000408.html ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 190
  • 191. Metadata Development: Conventional techniques Techniques •  Open card-sorting to gather terms •  Closed card-sorting to validate terms •  Can be difficult to carry out in enterprise environment (scope of vocabulary, subject sampling) Modifications for enterprise setting •  Use remote tools (e.g. IBM’s EZsort) •  Apply in “stepped” mode: test subsections of taxonomy separately •  Drawback: lack of physical cards may diminish value of data ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 191
  • 192. Metadata Development: Classification scheme analysis Review existing schemes, looking for: •  Duplication of domain •  Overlapping domains •  Consistency or lack thereof Can some vocabularies be reused? Improved? Eliminated? ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 192
  • 193. Automated Metadata Development: Two classes of tools Auto-categorization tools •  Can leverage pattern-matching and cluster- analysis algorithms to automatically generate categories (e.g., Autonomy, Interwoven) •  Can also use rules (i.e., concepts) to generate categories (e.g., Inktomi, Verity, Entrieva/Semio) Auto-classification tools •  Apply indexing to existing categories •  Require controlled vocabularies (generally manually-created) to index content ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 193
  • 194. Automated Metadata Development: Pros and cons Benefits •  Apolitical applications that disregard org chart •  May be a necessary evil in a large enterprise environment Drawbacks •  Limited value in heterogeneous, multi- domain environment •  Perform better with rich text, not so good with database records and other brief documents ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 194
  • 195. Automated Metadata Development: Semio example “E-commerce”: A human would collapse many of these categories At best, an 80% solution; none truly “automated” •  Significant manual proofing of the 80% of content indexed •  Significant manual indexing of the 20% not indexed ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 195
  • 196. Finding Metadata: Free listing Simple technique: •  “List all of the terms you associate with ______” •  Perform pair analysis (co-occurrence) on results Benefits •  Harvests terms associated with a concept or domain •  Can be done in survey form with many subjects, multiple audiences •  Supports card sorting •  Less useful for structuring relationships between terms •  Possible alternative to site search analytics ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 196
  • 197. The Zipf Curve: Consistent and telling Zipf distribution from Michigan State University search logs (derived from site search analytics) From http://netfact.com/rww/write/searcher/rww-searcher-msukeywords-searchdist-apr-jul2002.gif ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 197
  • 198. Common Search Queries: What they tell us ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 198
  • 199. Site Search Analytics: What does this data tell us? Keywords: focis; 0; 11/26/01 12:57 PM; XXX.XXX.XXX.2 Keywords: focus; 167; 11/26/01 12:59 PM; XXX.XXX.XXX.2 Keywords: focus pricing; 12; 11/26/01 1:02 PM; XXX.XXX.XXX.2 Keywords: discounts for college students; 0; 11/26/01 3:35 PM; XXX.XXX.XXX.59 Keywords: student discounts; 3; 11/26/01 3:35 PM; XXX.XXX.XXX.59 Keywords: ford or mercury; 500; 11/26/01 3:35 PM; XXX.XXX.XXX. 126 Keywords: (ford or mercury) and dealers; 73; 11/26/01 3:36 PM; XXX.XXX.XXX.126 Keywords: lorry; 0; 11/26/01 3:36 PM; XXX.XXX.XXX.36 Keywords: “safety ratings”; 3; 11/26/01 3:36 PM; XXX.XXX.XXX.55 Keywords: safety; 389; 11/26/01 3:36 PM; XXX.XXX.XXX.55 Keywords: seatbelts; 2; 11/26/01 3:37 PM; XXX.XXX.XXX.55 Keywords: seat belts; 33; 11/26/01 3:37 PM; XXX.XXX.XXX.55 ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 199
  • 200. Site Search Analytics: Instructions Sort and count queries Identify and group similar queries (e.g., “cell phones” and “mobile phones”) Understand users’ query syntax (e.g., use of single or multiple terms, Boolean operators) and semantics (e.g., use of lay or professional terms) Determine most common queries •  Identify content gaps through 0 result queries •  Build “Best Bets” for common queries •  Map common queries to audiences through IP or login analysis ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 200
  • 201. Site Search Analytics: Benefits for interface development Identifies “dead end” points (e.g., 0 hits, 2000 hits) where assistance could be added (e.g., revise search, browsing alternative) Syntax of queries informs selection of search features to expose (e.g., use of Boolean operators, fielded searching) …OR… ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 201
  • 202. Site Search Analytics: Benefits for metadata development Provides a source of terms for the creation of vocabularies Provides a sense of how needs are expressed •  Jargon (e.g., “lorry” vs. “truck”) •  Syntax (e.g., Boolean, natural language, keyword) Informs decisions on which vocabularies to develop/implement (e.g., thesaurus, spell- checker) ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 202
  • 203. Site Search Analytics: Benefits for content analysis Identifies content that can’t be found Identifies content gaps Creation of “Best Bets” to address common queries ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 203
  • 204. Site Search Analytics: Pros and cons Benefits •  Data is real, comprehensive, available (usually) •  High volume •  Can track sessions •  Non-intrusive Drawbacks •  Lack of good commercial analysis tools •  Lack of standards makes it difficult to merge multiple search logs (not to mention server logs) •  More difficult to merge with other logs (e.g. server) •  Doesn’t tell you why users did what they did ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 204
  • 205. Site Search Analytics: Enterprise context Makes case for EIA; usually demonstrates that users are requesting things that aren’t tied to departmental divisions (e.g., policies, products) Informs “Best Bets” Informs synonym creation Limited value if not analyzing merged logs ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 205
  • 206. EIA Research Methods Takeaways Challenges •  Many traditional methods can be adapted to the enterprise environment •  But sampling, geography, volume and politics force a less scientific, more pragmatic approach •  Also force greater reliance on automated tools We need new methods •  Focus on minimizing politics and geographic distribution •  Most are untested •  Information architects need to be willing to experiment, innovate, and live with mistakes ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 206
  • 207. EIA Framework ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 207
  • 208. EIA and the Enterprise: Phased, modular model Phasing is not just about roll-out and timing Should be overarching philosophy for EIA initiatives •  We can phase in whom we work with •  We can phase in whom we hire to do EIA work •  We can modularize what types of EIA we do •  We can phase in what degree of centralization we can support ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 208
  • 209. Why a Phased Model? Because mandates don’t work “Just do it!”… •  …all (e.g., all subsites) •  …now (e.g., in 3-6 months) •  …with few resources and people (e.g., one sad webmaster) •  …in a way that minimizes organizational learning (e.g., hire an outside consultant or agency) Results of the mandated “solution”: completely cosmetic, top-down information architecture ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 209
  • 210. The EIA Framework Seven issues 1.  EIA governance: how the work and staff are structured 2.  EIA services: how work gets done in an enterprise environment 3.  EIA staffing: who handles strategic and tactical efforts 4.  EIA funding model: how it gets paid for 5.  EIA marketing and communications: how it gets adopted by the enterprise 6.  EIA workflow: how it gets maintained 7.  EIA design and timing: what gets created and when ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 210
  • 211. The EIA Framework Critical goals Re-balance the enterprise’s in-house IA expertise to support an appropriate degree of centralization Enable slow, scaleable, sustainable growth of internal EIA expertise Create ownership/maintenance mechanism for enterprise-wide aspects of IA (currently orphaned) Ensure institutional knowledge is retained ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 211
  • 212. EIA Governance: Questions What sort of individuals or group should be responsible for the EIA? Where should they be located within the organization? How should they address strategic issues? Tactical issues? Can they get their work done with carrots, sticks, or both as they try to work with somewhat autonomous business units? ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 212
  • 213. EIA Governance: A separate business unit 1/2 Logical outgrowth of •  Web or portal team •  Design or branding group •  E-services, e-business or e-commerce unit Goals •  Ensure that IA is primary goal of the unit •  Retain organizational learning •  Avoid political baggage •  Maintain independence ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 213
  • 214. EIA Governance: A separate business unit 2/2 Ambitious, fool-hardy, unrealistic? Necessary! •  Models of successful new organizational efforts often start as separate entities •  Alternatives (none especially attractive) •  Be a part of IT or information services •  Be a part of marketing and communications •  Be a part of each business unit ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 214
  • 215. EIA Governance: Balancing strategic and tactical Strategic: Model on Board of Directors •  Represent key constituencies •  Track record with successes, mistakes with organization’s prior centralization efforts •  Mix of visionaries, people who understand money Tactical: Start with staff who “do stuff” •  Extend as necessary by outsourcing •  Enables logical planning of hiring and use of consultants and contractors ©2010 Louis Rosenfeld LLC (www.louisrosenfeld.com). All rights reserved. 215