Front-end: Search by topic
Hi Morgan,
Within the front-end research tool I think it will be best to offer users various methods of searching.
We can include a universal search bar that searches both the tags and the keywords of the document and we should also offer a more exploratory method of search. The exploratory method would be for users who are less familiar with the domain and don't have a clear idea of what terms to search for. In your existing subject navigator tool this is done by presenting the tags alphabetically. For P3 I'd like to move away from the alpha sort if possible and instead group the tags by subject matter. For users who are not familiar with the list of terms an alphabetical list is not very helpful.
Do you think it would be possible for the SMEs to create high-level topics to put the tags into? Some example buckets could be:
- financing
- risk mitagation
- operation and maintenance
- political economy
etc...
Let me know your thoughts.
Thanks,
Tina
Within the front-end research tool I think it will be best to offer users various methods of searching.
We can include a universal search bar that searches both the tags and the keywords of the document and we should also offer a more exploratory method of search. The exploratory method would be for users who are less familiar with the domain and don't have a clear idea of what terms to search for. In your existing subject navigator tool this is done by presenting the tags alphabetically. For P3 I'd like to move away from the alpha sort if possible and instead group the tags by subject matter. For users who are not familiar with the list of terms an alphabetical list is not very helpful.
Do you think it would be possible for the SMEs to create high-level topics to put the tags into? Some example buckets could be:
- financing
- risk mitagation
- operation and maintenance
- political economy
etc...
Let me know your thoughts.
Thanks,
Tina
I agree with the approach of created an exploratory method of find tags for less sophisticated users. This is what I was getting at with creating a hierarchical taxonomy of tags (similar to the Subject Navigator, which is by far the most popular tool on ISLG - 72% of all pageviews). I am open to the idea of creating a different structure from an alphabetical index. However, using a single high-level topic will probably be insufficient, because I believe you'll end of with an unusable number of tags in each topic (e.g., Financing could have hundreds of tags), each a single tag could be applicable to various topics in the different contexts.
Morgan
Yes, having only single level topics will be challenging given the quantity of tags. You can start off that way but you'll soon need to move to a hierarchical structure. This will really require someone to manage and maintain that hierarchy of topics and taxonomy list.
Can we build the prototype with the assumption that someone will maintain the list? Or, if you don't think that is realistic, we can keep things sorted alphabetically.
Thanks,
Tina
Yes, we'll build the prototype with the assumption that someone will always be maintain the taxonomy of tags. Someone more experienced like Doug will be responsible for this when the taxonomy is first developed, and then over time as a body of consistent tags is produced, we'll start to delegate this role to less experience subject matter experts (similar to the process we applied in ISLG). It has always been the intention that the taxonomy will be continually monitored and reviewed, which is part of the reason why tags must be review and approved before they are published.
Thanks,
Morgan