Food for Thought A man walks into a pet store looking to buy a monkey. The proprietor takes him to the back of the store and shows him three identical looking monkeys. "This one costs $600," says the owner. "Why so much?" asks the customer. "Because it can sing and play the Banjo" answers the owner. The customer asks about the next monkey and is told, "That one costs $1,200, because it can talk, translate 20 languages and mix cocktails." The man is astonished and asks about the third monkey. "That one costs $4,000," answers the proprietor. "4,000 dollars!" exclaims the man. "What can that one do?" To which the owner replies, "To be frank, I've never seen it do anything, but it calls itself a consultant."

Managing your Metadata with SharePoint 2010

From the great State of Alaska Masters in Instructional Design (from UAB) Working with SharePoint since v.1 User Experience Enthusiast Certified Athletic Trainer Blog: About Me

High Monkey Consulting is a biz-tech consulting company with a sense of humor. We specialize in planning, management, and delivery of biz- tech projects. With over a decade of service in challenging and diverse markets, we are versatile and able to adapt to the demands of our clients. Our consultants are well-versed in business, technology, training, and communication. We provide our clients with common sense solutions crafted with one eye on their business strategy and the other on delivering cost-effective results. About HMC SERVICES: Three core competencies - Collaboration Interface Design Usability Analysis Other services - Analysis & Planning Content Management Systems E-Learning.NET development Software Integration/Development Training

Managing Metadata

In 2007 managing metadata was complicated – Create choice fields or lookups – Custom fields – Buy a vendor solution – Use search in hopes the content contains what users are looking for The New Managed Metadata Service

2010 brings managing metadata out-of-the-box (SharePoint Server Only – as of now) – Lets you store terms centrally in a Term Store – Terms available for use…ANYWHERE – Social / User tagging – Integration with BCS – Navigation / Search The New Managed Metadata Service

Taxonomy – Managed Terms Folksonomy – Managed Keywords – Tagging The New Managed Metadata Service

Let’s play

Virgil’s 2010 MMS Greats – Managing term store from site collection – Importing of structured metadata – Metadata navigation – Everything you can do with terms The New Managed Metadata Service

Virgil’s 2010 MMS Gotchas – Setting up MMS (must be an MMS admin, even if farm) – Separating terms by commas – Term suggestion gotchas Must be disciplined in planning Misspellings Managed Keywords The New Managed Metadata Service

How We Find Information

What is taxonomy? First lets understand Information architecture

What is information architecture? The structural design of shared information environments. The combination of organization, labeling, search, and navigation systems within web sites and intranets. The art and science of shaping information products and experiences to support usability and findability. An emerging discipline and community of practice focused on bringing principles of design and architecture to the digital landscape.

4 basic IA concepts Information Structuring, organizing, and labeling Finding and managing Art and science What is information architecture?

The cost of finding information The cost of not finding information The value of education The cost of construction The cost of maintenance The cost of training The value of the brand Why IA Matters

Context UsersContent Business goals, funding, politics, culture, technology, resources and constraints Document / data types, content objects, volume, existing structure Audience, tasks, needs, information seeking behavior, experience The 3 Circles of IA

Context All web sites and intranets exist within a particular business or organizational context Each organization has a mission, goals, strategy, staff, processes and procedures, physical and technology infrastructure, budget, and culture the key to success is understanding and alignment The 3 Circles of IA UsersContent Context

Content Includes documents, applications, services, schema, and metadata that people need to use or find on your site – How much content do you have? – What are the formats your content is in? – Who owns your content? The 3 Circles of IA Context Users Content

The 3 Circles of IA Users Every user has different experiences and abilities to draw from Every user has different needs and wants Do you know how your users use your site now? Context Content Users

What is taxonomy? So…

The science of categorization, or classification, of things based on a predetermined system. In reference to web sites and portals, a site’s taxonomy is the way it organizes its data into categories and subcategories. What is taxonomy?

BMB Taxonomy

Gives us new ways to better manage our taxonomies SharePoint 2010

How we think

Information architecture starts with the user and why one comes to a site in the first place: – they have an information need Information needs can vary and each need can cause users to exhibit specific information-seeking behaviors How We Think

The too-easy information seeking model User asks question MAGIC HAPPENS User received answer How We Think

Why doesn’t this model work? Users may not know what they are looking for User may not know the term to look for User may just want to explore How We Think

Sometimes you’re just looking for one answer (known-item) Typical Information Needs

Sometimes you want to investigate (exploratory) Typical Information Needs

Sometimes you want to find everything (Don’t know what you need) Typical Information Needs

Sometimes you need to find it again (Re-finding) Typical Information Needs

Info-Seeking Models Berry picking model 1.Search 2.View results 3.Use results to enhance search 4.Repeat until end result is found

How to find out what your taxonomy is

Research Bring in an information architect Just ask How to find out?

Card Sorting

Card sorting is a technique that many information architects (and related professionals.) use as an input to the structure of a site or product. What is Card Sorting?

Card sorting can help you identify trends – Do the users want to see the information grouped by subject, process, business group, or information type? – How similar are the needs of the different user groups? – How many potential main categories are there? What should those groups be called? Why use Card Sorting?

Open Card Sorting – Participants are given cards showing site content with no pre-established groupings. Closed Card Sorting – Participants are given cards showing site content with an established initial set of primary groups. Types of Card Sorting

Simple Cheap Quick to execute Established Involves users Provides a good foundation Advantages of Card Sorting

Does not consider users’ tasks Results may vary. Analysis can be time consuming May capture “surface” characteristics only Disadvantages of Sorting

Card Sorting Results Example: raw results

Card Sorting Results Example: groupings

Card Sorting Results Example: groupings

Card Sorting Results Example: categorized results

Don’t make your structure a scavenger hunt

Ambiguity – What kind of language is being used – i.e. BSE vs Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy Heterogeneity / Homogeneous – i.e. storing all project documents vs. storing project plans Differences in perspectives – i.e. Looking for invoice by client vs. by project Internal politics – Mine, mine, mine!!! Challenges of Organizing Info

Objective organizational schemes – Alphabetical – Chronological – Geographical Subjective organizational schemes – Topic – Task – Audience – Metaphor Hybrids Types of Organizing Schemes

To be successful in making information findable, we need to: – First, understand how people find information – Provide users with a consistent navigation experience (don’t stray from the natural patterns if possible) – Learn from your users (Don’t be afraid to test them) – Decide what organizational needs are most important, and provide users options In summary

HMC 2007 Document Library Planning Worksheet Setting up security around versioning can allow editors to work on new versions of documents / items while allowing other users to see the latest approved version

HMC 2007 Content Type Planning Worksheet Tying metadata to content types can allow for storage of multiple types of information in one location, while enabling ease of differentiation and search

HMC 2010 Documentation 2.0 Join our beta test

About the business side of collaboration Reaching a global audience Sharing ideas about why we do things the way we do

QUESTIONS?? Virgil Carroll, President High Monkey Consulting Blog: