mixing it up: developing and implementing a tagging system for a content-rich website which uses...
Post on 01-Dec-2014
543 Views
Preview:
DESCRIPTION
TRANSCRIPT
Andrew Lewis Senior Web Content Manager, Victoria and Albert Museum
Mixing It Up:
Developing and implementing an in-housetagging system for a content-rich website
Museums and the Web7 April 2011
Linked In http://bit.ly/hOpANF
Andrew Lewis
Senior Web Content Manager at the Victoria and Albert Museum London, since 2008
Responsible for team managing content on website
Information science training with public library electronic services background
This session is hoping to give you…
A greater understanding of what
tagging can do and how that might
be useful for you.
Format of this session
Background - what we were trying to
do, and how we approached it
An audience exercise in tagging...
This session discusses
Brief background to V&A website
redevelopment
Attempts to cross-connect visitors with
content they might not realise we have
Developing a tagging system for simple
subject classification
The human issues around tagging
content
Background - redeveloping the V&A website
Rationale
– To improve site visually (easy bit)
– To move to organisation by user’s interests not by internal departmental structure
– To update site to be responsive to typical googling/social-recommendation behaviour of web users
– Move towards open source and integration of user-generated content and web social media
Current website…
beta.vam.ac.uk
Hierarchies
8
9
Hierarchies
beta.vam.ac.uk
Hierarchies
10
help
But…But...
How do visitors land on our website?
Source: Google Analytics for V&A site: 1 January – 31 December 2010
Clustering around users’ subjects of interest
How do visitors land on our website?
Source: Google Analytics for V&A site: 1 January – 31 December 2010
How do visitors land on our website?
3 levels of control…
3 levels of control
Editorial – ability to specify an article must appear under a subject cluster
Semi-automatic – ability to define the key subject of the article or subject cluster as the basis for clustering content
Automatic – search logic analyses the terms in the content and uses algorithms to match it with other content
Editorially selected content
Automatic and semi-automatic
Automatic and semi-automatic
Automatic and semi-automatic
Tagging…
6 tagging fields...
1. “person” to reflect that visitors would be looking for information about specific artists, designers, historical and fictional figures
2. “place” to reflect visitors interest in art and design associated with particular locations
3. “technique” to support visitors trying to understand artistic and design processes
4. “period/style” to reflect an interest in artistic movements or significant named historical periods
5. “date” to reflect that visitors may be interested in work produced at a particular point in history
6. “free text” – this was included to allow flexibility and be able to employ terms not covered by the more specific categories
23
A lot of spreadsheets...
Scale…
The process of tagging content
– Audit revealed over 4,000 pages on the main site
– Tagged individually by reading the page and deciding the main subject(s)
– Possible subject clusters noted at the same time
– At the time, staff could not see the effect of tagging, as system was not built
– Rules developed as a group exercise with daily feedback and discussion as tagging progressed
26
Identifying clusters...
Your turn…
Opera tagging
http://beta.vam.ac.uk/page/m/membership
http://beta.vam.ac.uk/page/k/kimono
Things to take away...
Tagging offers a pragmatic method for aggregation without cumbersome schemas
It is labour intensive
Classification is not as simple as it appears. Tagging needs balance between accuracy and “good enough”
Tagging is very subjective
People assign importance according to their knowledge of a subject
Developing tagging without seeing the results creates anxiety
Andrew Lewis
http://beta.vam.ac.uk
Thank you
Museums and the Web7 April 2011
Linked In: http://bit.ly/hOpANF
email: a.lewis@vam.ac.uk
top related