Taxonomy (was Re: Index/TOC Needed in HTML &/or Browser-Based Help?)

[Beth Agnew]

Information is definitely evolving toward a taxonomic model. Knowledge 
management systems, increasingly sophisticated search engines, and just 
the overwhelming flood of information available makes it necessary for 
us to think about how we categorize bits of information. Metadata and 
tag clouds provide some ways of getting at the topics we want, but 
there's still a long way to go. And because each of us thinks 
differently, based on our own experience and knowledge, we will likely 
never gain consensus on every topic. Some tags or keywords will be left 
out. We are also seeing more non-text objects included in knowledge 
repositories -- graphics, audio and video files, etc. cannot be 
identified except by certain properties. There is not yet a way of 
searching within these objects for specific keywords. If the creator 
does not include that tag or keyword when placing it into the 
repository, you have to review each item to see if it is the one you 
want. Quite a limitation.

As technical writers, it falls within our responsibility and mandate to 
become knowledgeable about every aspect of information handling and help 
our audiences come to grips with the mountain of information available 
to them. If we don't take an active role in this, the void will be 
filled by others who may not have the training, or concern for the end 
user, that we do. So far, we've got programmers deciding how billions of 
pages of documents are categorized on the web. Remember how effective it 
was when the programmers wrote all the user guides.

In our own organizations, how many of us are involved in implementation 
of the company's knowledge management system? I would guess, very few. 
But who better to be involved than those who care how knowledge is 
structured, found, and communicated?

This is not something we really want to leave to, um, the zoologists. ;-)

doc at edwordsmith.com wrote:
> 5.  About the taxonomic approach to infomation, I think it is about time! and 
> I will be happy to give it my endorsement once I've seen it applied 
> effectively by Help authors.  Taxonomy does come with its own set of 
> problems ... I think it would be awesome to retrain some Type A zoologists as tech writers, 
> and give them the job of developing taxonomies of programming objects <vbg>.  
>
> ----------------
> Ned Bedinger
> doc at edwordsmith.com
-- 
Beth Agnew
http://www.301url.com/podcasting

Professor, Technical Communication
Seneca College of Applied Arts & Technology
Toronto, ON 416.491.5050 x3133
http://www.tinyurl.com/83u5u