Taxonomy Design

Abstract

This chapter discusses the design of taxonomies to be used in dynamic taxonomy systems. Although the only actual requirement of dynamic taxonomies is a multidimensional classification, an organization by facets is normally used.

The first section provides guidelines for the design of DT taxonomies, which include the automatic construction from structured data, and the retrofitting of traditional monodimensional taxonomies.

The second section shows how a faceted taxonomy can be automatically extracted from the infobase itself when objects are textual or are described by textual captions or tags.

“Think simple” as my old master used to say—

meaning reduce the whole of its parts into the

simplest terms, getting back to first principles.

Frank Lloyd Wright, 1867–1959