Taxonomy is User Experience - Dave Cooksey February 26, 2008

Taxonomy Is User Experience
Over the past couple of years, we've all seen a lot of discussion around user-organized, user-generated content with sites like Flickr and Wikipedia held up as the future of user experiences where users tag and organize information as it suits them. We've even heard a certain amount of talk about the end of taxonomies.

Despite of the rise of tagging and wikis and the user experiences they enable, taxonomy has never been more important. Taxonomies continue to grow in importance as metadata and ontologies extend their capabilities and allow us to create more engaging user experiences.

This presentation will approach taxonomies from the user's perspective. It will begin by introducing a simple conceptual framework that communicates the centrality of taxonomies to user experience. Then, the presentation will cover:

- the virtues of thinking of taxonomy in terms of the user experience and not simply as data or classification

- ways of talking about taxonomy that clearly communicate its value to the business and help promote taxonomy as a practice

- how to craft a user-centric taxonomy by examining several e-commerce redesign case studies

By discussing taxonomy and metadata in terms of user experience, we will learn to communicate better with the business, inform our co-workers how to create more engaging user experiences, and bring the user into the taxonomy creation process.

About Our Speaker
Dave is a User Experience Lead at gsi interactive, a division of GSI Commerce, a turnkey e-commerce provider located in King of Prussia, PA. His day-to-day work includes guiding and executing user experience & design activities, conducting user research, and information architecture. He also leads taxonomy and metadata projects. Dave's work is informed by masters degrees in information systems (Drexel University) and social science (University of Illinois).

Dave is the current Chair of PhillyCHI, the Philadelphia region's chapter of the ACM's interest group on Human-Computer Interaction (SIG-CHI). He is also a member of the American Society of Information Science & Technology (ASIS&T) and the Information Architecture Institute (IAI).

About Our Sponsor
gsi interactive (sm) is the full-service interactive marketing and design agency of GSI Commerce(R). Our team consists of interactive marketing and design experts who eat, drink and breathe your business. Through concentrated, continuous collaboration, we transform ideas into visually engaging, high-impact online destinations and campaigns to drive your customers to desired actions.

From strategy, to concept, to execution, we align our consciouslycreative energy with your business strategy and brand. In doing so, we deliver captivating interactive experiences that increase your acquisition of new customers, convert more visitors into buyers, and drive significant revenue across multiple channels.

To learn more about gsi interactive and GSI Commerce, please visit www.gsicommerce.com.

Official Website: http://phillychi.acm.org