Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, Second Edition

What’s Next

The initial success of MSWeb’s approach is exciting, but it’s just the first step over the course of many years and phases to come. To some degree, the team expects continued growth in what’s currently in place: more resource records, more robust taxonomies, and more sites coming on board and utilizing an increasing array of SAS services and MSWeb consulting. But the MSWeb team also hopes to try out some interesting new plans in the not-too-distant future.

One exciting possibility is an increased role for other business units in the creation of an even more mature infrastructure to support enterprise-wide information architecture and content management. MSWeb isn’t looking to own this endeavor, but move into a leadership role, with other units playing the role of partners. In this scenario, Microsoft will save money because its business units will engage in increased sharing of taxonomies and related tools and efforts. Additionally, a greater degree of awareness among content managers might result in more willingness to go along with future centralizing initiatives, such as requiring the registration of resources in order for them to be indexed for searching. This trade-off might make for a little more work on the part of content owners, but will result in improved searching for users, as well as much more efficient content management practices by establishing who’s responsible for what content, when it should be updated, and so on.

Even more exciting is the possibility ...