The Sensemaker’s Guide to Taxonomies

Let’s cut to the chase: taxonomy is one of those words that makes people’s eyes glaze over. But here’s the thing, you’re already doing it whether you know it or not.

Every time you organize your photos into folders, sort your emails, or decide which drawer the kitchen scissors belong in, you’re creating a taxonomy. You’re making sense of the world by putting like things together and giving them names that help you find them later.

The difference between what you do at home and what we do professionally is scale, stakes, and the number of people who need to understand your logic.

What is Taxonomy?

Taxonomy is the practice of classifying things into categories and giving those categories names that make sense to the people who will use them.

That’s it. No fancy jargon needed.

It’s about creating buckets for your stuff, whether that stuff is products, content, data, or any other kind of information, and making sure those buckets have clear, useful labels.

The word comes from biology, where scientists organize living things into kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species. But you don’t need to be a scientist to benefit from taxonomic thinking. You just need to have stuff that needs organizing.

Reasons for Taxonomy

Why bother with taxonomy at all? Because without it, you’re drowning in chaos.

Findability: When things are properly categorized and labeled, people can find what they’re looking for. When they’re not, even the best search engine can’t help you.

Consistency: Taxonomy creates shared language within your organization. Instead of everyone calling the same thing by different names, you establish what goes where and what to call it.

Scalability: As your collection of stuff grows, taxonomy keeps it manageable. Without it, growth becomes clutter, and clutter becomes paralysis.

Decision-making: Clear categories make it easier to spot patterns, identify gaps, and make informed choices about what to keep, change, or throw away.

User experience: When people can predict where to find things, they feel more confident and capable. When they can’t, they feel frustrated and lost.

Common Use Cases for Taxonomy

Taxonomy shows up everywhere, often disguised as something else:

Website navigation: Those menu items and page categories? That’s taxonomy at work, helping users understand how information is organized.

Product catalogs: Whether you’re selling shoes or software, customers need to be able to browse by category, filter by attributes, and understand what makes one product different from another.

Content management: Blog posts, articles, documents, and media files all need homes. Taxonomy provides the filing system that keeps content organized and discoverable.

Data organization: Customer records, financial information, research findings. All of this needs to be categorized in ways that make analysis and reporting possible.

Knowledge management: Company policies, procedures, best practices, and institutional knowledge need structure so people can find and use what they need.

Compliance and governance: Legal, regulatory, and internal requirements often demand specific ways of categorizing and labeling information.

Types of Taxonomies

Not all taxonomies are created equal. Here are the main types you’ll encounter:

Hierarchical taxonomies work like family trees, with broad categories at the top and increasingly specific subcategories below. Think of how a library organizes books: literature → fiction → mystery → detective novels.

Faceted taxonomies let you slice and dice the same items in multiple ways. An online store might let you browse clothing by size, color, style, and price range all at once.

Flat taxonomies keep everything at the same level, like tags on a blog post. There’s no hierarchy, just a bunch of labels that can be applied as needed.

Network or polyhierarchical taxonomies allow items to belong to multiple categories and show relationships between different branches. They’re messier but often more realistic.

Sequences are conditions-based arrangements of content that progress over time.

Folksonomies are when users create their own tags and categories organically. It’s democratic but can get chaotic quickly.

Approaches to Taxonomy

There are two main ways to build a taxonomy: top-down and bottom-up.

Top-down means starting with the big picture and working your way down to the details. You decide on major categories first, then figure out subcategories, then specific items. This approach works well when you have a clear vision of how things should be organized and enough authority to make it stick.

Bottom-up means starting with the individual items and looking for patterns that suggest natural groupings. You sort through everything you have, notice what goes together, and build categories around those relationships. This approach works better when you’re dealing with existing content or when you need buy-in from people who are close to the material.

Most successful taxonomy projects use both approaches, moving back and forth between big-picture thinking and detailed sorting until everything clicks into place.

Tips for Getting Started with Taxonomy

Start with your users, not your org chart: The best taxonomies reflect how people actually think about and use information, not how your company happens to be structured.

Use words people recognize: If your audience calls them “pants,” don’t label the category “lower body garments.” Meet people where they are, not where you think they should be.

Test early and often: Show your taxonomy to real users and watch how they interact with it. Where do they get confused? What do they expect to find that isn’t there?

Keep it simple: Resist the urge to create categories for every possible variation. Sometimes “miscellaneous” is exactly what you need.

Plan for growth: Your taxonomy should be able to handle new types of content without breaking. Build in flexibility from the start.

Document your decisions: Write down why you made certain choices. Six months from now, you’ll be grateful for the reminder.

Start small: Don’t try to organize everything at once. Pick one area, get it right, then expand from there.

Taxonomy Hot Takes

Here are some opinions that might ruffle feathers:

Perfect taxonomies don’t exist: There’s no such thing as a taxonomy that works perfectly for everyone. Stop trying to create one and focus on making something that works well enough for your specific context.

Users will break your taxonomy: Plan for it. People will put things in the wrong categories, use labels incorrectly, and generally ignore your beautiful logic. Design for human behavior, not human ideals.

Taxonomy is never finished: It’s a living system that needs ongoing attention. If you’re not regularly reviewing and updating your taxonomy, it’s already out of date.

Consensus is overrated: Sometimes you need to make a decision, agree to measure the results and move on. Waiting for everyone to agree on the perfect category name is a recipe for paralysis.

Most taxonomy problems are actually communication problems: If people can’t understand or use your taxonomy, the issue usually isn’t with the categories themselves—it’s with how you’ve explained or framed them.

Taxonomy Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How many categories should I have? A: As few as possible while still being useful. Research suggests people can handle about ~7 top-level categories before they start getting overwhelmed.

Q: Should I use single words or phrases for category names? A: Whatever makes the most sense to your users. Single words are cleaner but phrases can be clearer. Test both and see what works.

Q: What if something could belong in multiple categories? A: That’s what cross-references and polyhierarchy is for. Don’t force things into artificial boxes just to maintain hierarchy. But also remember if everything is in every category, “category” loses it’s meaning.

Q: How do I handle overlap between categories? A: Some overlap is inevitable and even helpful. The goal isn’t perfect boundaries—it’s useful boundaries. The size and nature of the overlap matter a lot when determining how to handle it. This is something live card sorting with users can really help to smooth out.

Q: Should I involve users in creating the taxonomy? A: Absolutely, but don’t expect them to design it for you. Get their input on how they think about the content, then translate that into a working system.

Q: How often should I update my taxonomy? A: Regularly but not constantly. Set up a review schedule—maybe quarterly or twice a year—and stick to it.

Q: What’s the biggest mistake people make with taxonomy? A: Making it too complicated. The best taxonomies feel obvious once you see them.

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If you want to learn more about my approach to Taxonomy, consider attending my workshop on 8/15/25 from 12 PM to 2 PM ET. Building Better Buckets: Hands-on Taxonomy Design — this workshop is free to premium members of the Sensemakers Club along with a new workshop each month.

Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for our focus area in September is Argumentation