Description
Title: Senior Taxonomy Consultant
Type: Contract- 6 months
Location: Atlanta, GA 30339 (need work performed onsite in Atlanta)
Rate: Market DOE
Our client is seeking a Senior Taxonomy Consultant for a 6 month contract position in Atlanta, GA. Candidates should be comfortable performing analysis on website trends/usage and combining/correlating multiple sources of disparate data. The Senior Taxonomy Consultant will act as Subject Matter Expert and liaison for issues or questions regarding structure and display of assigned product areas. This role also helps prioritize work requests and recommends future taxonomy changes to improve site usability based on specific and measurable key performance indicators. Partners closely with cross-functional stakeholders to ensure organizational alignment with proposed taxonomy solutions. Seeks opportunities to improve taxonomy operations through development of appropriate business processes and governance models.
Client Details: Our client, headquartered in Atlanta, GA, operates in all 50 states while also having a global presence/recognition. Accolades include being recently ranked as No. 29 on the Fortune 500 U.S. list, donating millions to charities, nonprofit organizations, scholarship programs, sponsorships, and efforts toward environmental sustainability. Their dedication to customer service, teamwork, diversity, and community lays the foundation where employees receive both personal and professional fulfillment.
Primarily responsible for building and maintaining a comprehensive taxonomy structure to optimize product discovery, manage day-to-day operations and ongoing data governance for the digital portfolio.The taxonomist will have a very strong background in information architecture or library sciences discipline and will have a direct and significant impact on improving the customer experience as well as drive sales on the site by making it easier for customers to find and purchase products through navigational content.This position will report to the Master Data Management team within the Ecommerce Department, and will consult extensively with merchants, user experience architects, content strategists and technical solution teams in E-commerce IT.Key Responsibilities: 65% Of Time
- Serve as a subject matter expert on merchandised product taxonomy, as well as labeling for optimal find-ability and customer experience presentation.
- Identify, evaluate and execute product organization and category mapping changes for a fashion brand retail E-commerce site's navigation flow.
- Govern and document ontology rules that align with how customers shop as well with how our web merchants present and promote products using industry best practices.
- Interact with key stakeholders including vendors, web merchants, conversion specialists to collect taxonomy requirements, assign appropriate attributes and attribute values to products within the taxonomy, evaluate current online product hierarchy and recommend updates or edits to the taxonomy for optimal results.
- Perform extensive product and competitor research and present executive level summaries on findings.
- Expose opportunity for long-term strategy regarding responsive design future and challenges with changing platform technologies, as these relate to navigation and taxonomy.
- Validate, align, and prioritize change requests for global facets as well as mapping for new multi-nodal relationships and secondary or seasonal facets.
- Own and maintain data governance of taxonomy for the digital portfolio, including mobile and kiosks etc.
- Work in a detail-oriented manner to ensure quality standards for the metadata.
- Implement change enhancements and refinements. Effectively communicate methodologies and processes that impact taxonomy expansion and maintenance.
- Effectively communicate and document updates to the taxonomy and release change information to internal stakeholders and cross-functional teams.
- Establish best practices for maintaining content taxonomies, naming conventions and implementation strategies.
- Work extensively with search conversion specialists to execute or modify appropriate label libraries with optimal SEO.
- Be willing to evangelize the user experience practice and possess a knack for educating novices and non-practitioners.
- Govern the data mapping processes and monitor related enterprise eco-systems and tools, and communicate potential impacts.
- Expose gaps where metadata is not being serviced for optimal delivery to consumer facing applications, and work with upstream product owners
- Ensure timely, effective execution of all taxonomy changes on the website.
- Measure performance of all taxonomy components and recommend quarterly updates to analytics as needed to ensure solid performance data.
General UX Tasks - 35% Of Time
- Identifies user requirements by researching and analysing user needs, preferences, objectives, and working methods; studying how users consume content, including data categorization and labeling; meeting with focus groups, perform card sorting techniques to determine hierarchies.
- Plans information architecture by studying the site concept, strategy, and target audience; envisioning architectural scheme, information structure and features, functionality, and user-interface design; creating user scenarios; preparing data models; designing information structure, work-and dataflow, and navigation; evaluating information representation; conducting creative meetings and educational workshops to cross functional stakeholders.
- Organizes information by translating user behavior into media structure and elements; crafting interactive experiences; producing workflow diagrams, user scenarios, flowcharts, and storyboards; preparing interaction specifications, navigation rules, organization of information, and site maps; coordinating with business, technology, visual, structural, editorial, cognitive, and brand strategists to build process.
- Implements information architecture by preparing paper and interactive prototypes and mockups including page layout and navigational elements; coordinating with Web Producer and Technical Developer to integrate site concept, visual design, writing, interface, and navigational structure; documenting structure and processes.
- Validates information delivery by developing and completing usability test plans; evaluating and moderating traffic patterns; studying user feedback; coordinating with Usability Specialists using a variety of widely accepted industry tools and methods.
Requirements
- BA or BS in business, analytical or computer-related field or equivalent experience
- MS in Library Science, HCI or IA equivalent experience - retail tenure preferred
- Minimum 3 years experience designing or managing taxonomy or creating faceted navigation classification systems
- Minimum 3 years E-commerce experience, consumer goods or retail preferred.
- Minimum 3 years Internet merchandising or Internet marketing experience
- Demonstrated ability to execute, design and implement data architecture for complex taxonomies
- Experience executing or designing complex organizational workflow processes
- Understanding of SEO and experience applying SEO principles
- Ability to drive the identification of stakeholder requirements through interactive workshops, data gathering, and other methods
- Demonstrated ability to communicate effectively and work efficiently in a fast-paced, rapidly changing environment. Rapid prototyping skills or sketch-noting a plus.
- Strong analytical and organizational skills with an aptitude for attention to detail
- Thorough understanding of structured and unstructured data, and ability to make connections between data, technical constraints, content management systems and business goals
- Solid understanding of online user behaviors, web analytics, and Internet technology
- Experience in software vendor management
- Be able to think strategically and act tactically
- Offer ongoing recommendations to software and product tools that automate data structures.
- Passionate about website usability and improving customer shopping experience
- Familiarity with common research techniques and test methods.
- Proficiency with MS Word, MS Excel, Outlook, Office.
- Must have experience working within Content Management Systems, Web Publishing Systems, URL Generation and Tagging structures.
Synergis is a woman-owned company that serves a myriad of clients across nearly all industries, from start-ups to Fortune 100 companies. The outcomes of these relationships are demonstrated in a growing list of more than 300 clients and industry recognitions by Inc. magazine and the Atlanta Business Chronicle.
From its foundation in 1997, Synergis has been successfully recruiting and placing IT professionals in all areas of information technology.