Categorisation is hard

Categorisation schemes are tricky to create. Your local supermarket probably arranges their goods based on a planogram updated frequently by head office, specifying where various items are to be placed on shelves. Competing requirements will be balanced – findability, cross-promotion, visibility of “hero” product lines, payments for prime positioning, and so on.

If you visit a supermarket that belongs to a different parent company, or that is independent, you will likely be confused to some degree as items that seem like natural neighbours are inexplicably separated.

Categorisation online is also tricky. Do guitar strings belong under “accessories” or “guitars?” The virtual nature of an online environment means you can duplicate, and have items residing in more than one location, but this can create confusion and unanticipated consequences such as ambiguous or misleading breadcrumbs.

A compounding factor is, of course, human nature. I was working with a client that specialised in compliance. One of their customers told me a story about their Health & Safety system. Any accident or incident had to be reported using an online form at the earliest opportunity. A staff member was involved in a car crash late one night while working. The staff member duly filled in an incident report. When specifying the severity of the incident, they selected “fatality.”

On submission, the incident was automatically escalated. Various senior managers and crisis management personnel were awoken.

It transpired that the worker had struck and killed an unfortunate kangaroo. No humans were harmed.

For me this is a good illustration of the fact that no matter how much thought and effort you put into creating and testing and refining a categorisation scheme, you can be guaranteed that somebody will interpret it in a way you’d not intended or foreseen.