A global Fortune 500 company needed an experience marketing platform that would support any number of business units marketing any number of products to any number of customers across multiple channels with an unknown mix of static and dynamic content and complex personalization yet to be determined—because the company knew it was in transition, the platform would need to evolve without any new development. How do you design a sustainable information architecture when organization, labels, navigation, and metadata are guaranteed to change? Hear lessons from designing this and other flexible organizational systems, and learn approaches to use when architecting sustainable, complex, enterprise platforms.

1. Architect Taxonomy
Systems to Support
Change
• Lessons from designing flexible organizational systems
• Approaches for architecting sustainable, complex,
enterprise platforms.
Austin Govella
@austingovella
www.agux.co
Taxonomy Bootcamp 2017
Washington, DC

2. “Architect Taxonomy Systems to Support Change” by Austin Govella • Taxonomy Bootcamp 2017
Stay in touch
@austingovella
http://agux.co
ag@agux.co

3. “Architect Taxonomy Systems to Support Change” by Austin Govella • Taxonomy Bootcamp 2017

4. “Architect Taxonomy Systems to Support Change” by Austin Govella • Taxonomy Bootcamp 2017
E-Commerce
Knowledge Management
Employee Experience
Cross-Channel Marketing
Customer Portals
Workflow Applications

5. “Architect Taxonomy Systems to Support Change” by Austin Govella • Taxonomy Bootcamp 2017
The ask
A global Fortune 500 company needed a platform.
Support any number of business units marketing any
number of products to any number of customers across
multiple channels with an unknown mix of static and
dynamic content and complex personalization yet to be
determined.
Because the company knew it was in transition, the platform
would need to evolve without new development.

6. “Architect Taxonomy Systems to Support Change” by Austin Govella • Taxonomy Bootcamp 2017
The context
• Some business units deliver products. Others deliver
services.
• Some market to businesses owners, some to engineers,
some to consumers, some in first world, some in
developing world.
• Some business units or markets are very mature, chasing
slowly. Some are very young, changing quickly.
• Some business units have personnel and budget to support
websites and catalogs and metadata. Some don’t.

7. “Architect Taxonomy Systems to Support Change” by Austin Govella • Taxonomy Bootcamp 2017
The needs
• Supports simple or complex organizational needs
• Maintains itself when there’s no one to maintain it
• Easy to change organization, labels, metadata, and
navigation
• Easy to leverage organization, labels, metadata, and
navigation

8. “Architect Taxonomy Systems to Support Change” by Austin Govella • Taxonomy Bootcamp 2017
Navigation is marketing,
not wayfinding.
The taxonomy is less important than
what the taxonomy will become.

9. Who cares.
Death stalks
us all.

10. “Architect Taxonomy Systems to Support Change” by Austin Govella • Taxonomy Bootcamp 2017
Properties of sustainable
taxonomic systems
1. Make it easy for content authors to see the impact.
Ask for the same metadata they see in the search filters or navigation.
This lets them see value of using, as well as impact of changes.
2. Make it harder to change more controlled vocabularies.
Force content authors to leverage existing categories.
3. Make it easy to change less controlled vocabularies.
Let content authors tag things with whatever they want.
4. Enable use of specialized dialects.
Let groups use specific, siloed taxonomies that apply only to them.
5. Increase the spread of the most useful taxonomies.
Enable global, shared vocabularies that any object or system can
leverage.

11. Example
1. Make it easy for content authors to see the
impact.
Tags appear in search and browse
structure.
2. Make it harder to change more controlled
vocabularies.
Business rules require some constants.
3. Make it easy to change less controlled
vocabularies.
Add a new tag whenever you want.
4. Enable use of specialized dialects.
Let groups use specific taxonomies that
apply only to them.
5. Increase the spread of the most useful
taxonomies.
Enable global, shared vocabularies that
any object or system can leverage.
3
2
5
4
1

12. “Architect Taxonomy Systems to Support Change” by Austin Govella • Taxonomy Bootcamp 2017
Organizations need a family
kitchen, a place to cook, eat,
pray, fight, and love.

13. How do taxonomies
change?

14. “Architect Taxonomy Systems to Support Change” by Austin Govella • Taxonomy Bootcamp 2017
People Change
• Missing elders:
When the people who know the words are no longer
around to tell you.
• Angry elders:
When you don’t know what it is or why it’s important, so
you don’t touch it for fear of messing something up.

15. “Architect Taxonomy Systems to Support Change” by Austin Govella • Taxonomy Bootcamp 2017
Use Changes
• Expansion
Over time, a term begins to refer to more and
more objects.
• Fatigue
Organization applies term to fewer and fewer items
because of forgetting, difficulty, or fatigue.
• Contraction
Over time, a term begins to refer to fewer and
fewer objects.

16. “Architect Taxonomy Systems to Support Change” by Austin Govella • Taxonomy Bootcamp 2017
Meaning Changes
• Drift
Over time, meaning slowly changes, so term begins to
refer to different objects.
• Jumps
Sudden event substantially changes meaning of
existing term.
• Shifts
Sudden event introduces new groups of terms.

17. “Architect Taxonomy Systems to Support Change” by Austin Govella • Taxonomy Bootcamp 2017
Taxonomic thoughts
Terms begin defined to refer to specific, definable, useful
groups of items.
Taxonomies imagine conversations with people who exist at
other points in time: ghosts.
The more terms are used, the more useful they are, until
they’re not.
As relevance between a term and a specific object increases,
relevance between the term and all objects decreases.
Taxonomies are how the organization talks about itself.

18. Do we want
to make
crepes?

19. “Architect Taxonomy Systems to Support Change” by Austin Govella • Taxonomy Bootcamp 2017
People use the taxonomies
to talk about the organization.
As language, taxonomies allow or foreclose
different kinds of conversations.
Today’s taxonomy is the language you use to negotiate
how the organization will evolve.

20. How do we
want to eat?

21. Bridge to the future