PROJECTS / CASE STUDIES

Case Study 4: Creating a Successful Search Taxonomy

Client

Fortune 500 software company

Situation

The business goal of this client was to provide resources to educators about its software products — including resources to support usage of the software in classroom settings, for professional development, and for the actual business of educational institutions. One type of resource available for free on the organization's Web site was that of lesson plans. Unfortunately, site visitors generally did not know these resources were available, and often couldn't find what they needed when they did know. The search feature to find resources was poorly implemented, and no standardized tagging schema existed to make the search function work well. The client was very concerned these helpful resources would continue to provide minimum value unless they resources could more readily be found by those who would benefit.

Project Approach

Work was underway by a separate vendor team to redesign the Web site and its overall information architecture. We focussed on the tagging schema that would be needed to support a reliable search mini-application. As the immediate concern was to build a search mini-application for lesson plans, we began our research by studying classification systems already employed by educational standards organizations, national and international curriculum publishers, as well as standards set by different U.S states. Consideration to international needs was important, as well as to future needs for tagging completely different types of resources or site content. Our approach was to develop a high-level organizational taxonomy with one specific area — lesson plans — fully "fleshed out." We believed it necessary to anticipate future needs of the taxonomy to guarantee its integrity over time. Since the UI for the search mini-application was another critical success factor, the functional design for this was also developed by our team. Both the taxonomy and the search UI were scheduled for usability testing.

Deliverables*

• A key deliverable was the actual taxonomy to define the tagging schema for lesson plan resources. The taxonomy included all high level organizational categories, with the target area for lesson plans fully developed. See both -> Taxonomy Diagram ( 66 kb) and Taxonomy Details ( 196 kb).
• The UI for the search application was presented first in concept, then in an HTML prototype that stressed functionality and its relationship to the taxonomy.
• Recommendations for enlarging the usage of the search application to include additional resources was presented, as well as recommendations to more consistently structure the actual lesson plans.
• 130 existing lesson plans were tagged using the new taxonomy attributes and values.
• Results from usability testing were analyzed and presented in table format to the client; minor changes to to the taxonomy were subsequently recommended.

Results

The new search mini-application and corresponding taxonomy enabled site visitors to find what they needed without getting lost or confused. The taxonomy and search application was successfully expanded by the client to incorporate additional resources at a later date.

* Deliverables have been "cleansed" of identifying information to retain anonymity of client.

Note: Project was completed within a team context in which PageSolutions was a primary participant.