Taxonomy

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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)

graphics/02fig06.gif


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).

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Building Portals, Intranets, and Corporate Web Sites Using Microsoft Servers
Building Portals, Intranets, and Corporate Web Sites Using Microsoft Servers
ISBN: 0321159632
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2004
Pages: 164

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