Taxonomy

A taxonomy is a hierarchy of categories used to simplify navigation and searching. For instance, a standard company brochure web site would have a taxonomy like that shown in Table 2.1.

Table 2.1. Company Brochure Web Site Taxonomy

Home
Company Information
	Stockholder Information
	Key Personnel Biographies
		CEO
		President
		Director of Research and Development
		Vice President of Sales
		Human Resources Manager
Products
	KnowledgeManager
	Collaborama
	Product Price List
Services
	Consulting Services
	Services
Contact Us

The taxonomy is a powerful tool for creating navigation. For instance, the United States Air Force identified consistent navigation as one of the primary goals of the Air Force portal. When personnel move from base to base, they need the same services for housing, benefits, orientation, and human resource services. Before the portal, each base created its own web site and there was no guarantee that the same content would always be available or that the navigation would be easy to understand. Table 2.2 shows the standard navigation for Air Force base web sites, as defined in the Air Force portal.

Table 2.2. Standard Air Force Base Navigation in the Air Force Portal

Base Common Categories
	Base Home
	Medical
	Services
	Personnel
	Newcomer's Info
	Directives & Policies
Base Common Subcategories Surfaced to Base Home Page
	Base Map & Directions
	Units
	History
	Local Community
	Base FAQs
	Employment Opportunities
	Deployment (AEF)
	Security
	Base News
Base Common Content Links Surfaced to Base Home Page
	Base-level Announcements; Base Features; Base Spotlight; Threat Condition
	Medical
	Local Hospitals
	Appointments
	Pharmacy
	Local Providers
	Health News
	Self Care
Services
	MWR
	Housing
	Gym
	Library
	Dining
	Child Care
	Movies
	Address
	Mailbox
Personnel
	TMO
	Training
	PCS
Newcomer's Info
	PCS
	Housing
	Community
Directives & Policies

Another way to display a taxonomy is in a site map. Site maps can be displayed as a tree view with branches, which a user can expand or contract as needed. Unfortunately, many portals are so large that site maps of the entire site would be unwieldy. Microsoft.com certainly faces this issue. However, maps of smaller areas, in essence portal neighborhoods, can be quite useful. An example is shown in Figure 2.6.

Figure 2.6. Site Map (MSDN with Navigation Tree on Left)

Loosely connected sites risk losing users when they navigate deep into a site and they cannot find their way back. That's why some portals use breadcrumbs , which are listings of the hierarchy of topics traversed by the user. Here is a sample breadcrumb: Home > About Our Company > Executive Biographies > Our CEO . This user, in other words, viewed the home page first and then moved to About Our Company, and so on. Each of the terms in the breadcrumb is a link, which a user could click to go directly to the top page for that topic. Microsoft Content Management Server can automatically create the breadcrumb trail for you (see Chapter 9).