At first glance, the terms “findability” and “discoverability” may seem to refer to similar things. However, these concepts are very different, and both are key outcomes that should be considered in any comprehensive knowledge management strategy. CMS Wire brought this topic to our attention in their article, “Why Is Enterprise Search So Difficult?“
Findability is the ease with which information can be found. It means that users can easily find content or information they assume is present on a website. A good knowledge management strategy also promotes discoverability, which involves making sure that new content or information can be found, even if the user doesn’t know that it exists yet.
One way to ensure findability is with a custom taxonomy. Taxonomies exist in every industry from science to information management to healthcare. Taxonomies provide consistency in terms and categories to enable findability in content. This is true regardless of the subject.
For these types of projects, professionals should look for an experienced builder of solid standards-based taxonomies to associate content for appropriate machine-assisted indexing. Access Innovations can provide solutions that are ANSI-compliant.
Melody K. Smith
Sponsored by Access Innovations, the world leader in thesaurus, ontology, and taxonomy creation and metadata application.
