| name | building-taxonomy-and-ia |
| description | Creates information architecture and taxonomy structures for content organization. Use when designing navigation, categorization systems, or content hierarchies. |
Building Taxonomy and Information Architecture
Quick start
Collect or infer:
- Content inventory (what exists or will exist)
- User mental models (how users think about the domain)
- Primary user tasks and goals
- Business categorization requirements
- Existing navigation or organization (if any)
Then produce output using TEMPLATES.md. Validate with RUBRIC.md.
Workflow
- Inventory existing content and identify content types
- Conduct card sorting or analyze search/navigation data for user mental models
- Define taxonomy principles (mutual exclusivity, exhaustiveness, etc.)
- Create hierarchical structure with max 3 levels of depth
- Define naming conventions for categories
- Map content types to taxonomy nodes
- Test with representative user tasks
- Run the rubric check. Revise until it passes.
Degrees of freedom
Freedom level: Low
- Default: follow templates exactly
- Allowed variation: depth of hierarchy (2-3 levels), number of top-level categories—as long as rubric passes
- Strict constraints: taxonomy must be mutually exclusive; no orphan content; depth cannot exceed 3 levels
State awareness
- Greenfield: Design IA before content creation; establish patterns early
- Existing chaos: Audit first, identify clusters, then rationalize
- Scaling content: Focus on scalable categories, not content-specific buckets
- Multi-product: Define shared taxonomy layer, product-specific branches
References
