Taxonomy

The classification and organization of information have critical impact on usability. At the extremes, deep hierarchical taxonomies are simple but slow to navigate through, while flat taxonomies are fast to access but they are cluttered and messy. The information architecture of most websites is based on the publisher’s view of the world and not necessarily their constituents’. Sure enough, the classical taxonomy of websites is currently defined by products, services, specialties, etc. Another approach is to organize the content based on personas (type of visitors) or functions (type of transactions). In addition of providing multiple predefined taxonomies from which users can chose from, the ultimate websites of the future will allow frequent users to define their own taxonomy based on their preferences. By recognizing visitors and presenting to them the content organized in the way they prefer, publishers can bond with their users and turn them into loyal evangelists.