Innovation and Ontologies

280 Results of Develop/ Build
2.3.1 Informal Taxonomy
The importance of the visual system is affirmed by the fact that […]
the information carrying capacity […] of the visual system
is greater than for any other sense. (Friedhoff, 1989)
The first formalization of empirical data is a taxonomy of the field of interest. For representation
of the taxonomy, I use a tree structure. It holds all concepts identified in the context of the parttaxonomy
in question. Concepts are depicted as branches of the tree, their degree of detail growing
with distance to the trunk.
The most important advantages of this presentation are
• (relatively) fast development as well as simple integration of changes and
• high degree of comprehensibility also for lay users.
The second argument has been of particular importance for the OntoGate, confirming the
experiences made with the On-To-Knowledge methodology (Sure, Staab & Studer, 2004).
Establishment of an intercompany taxonomy requires finding solutions which can be
immediately accessed and understood by all partners. It is important to note that the taxonomy is
developed to ease access to and to increase comprehensibility of idea assessment and selection during the
Fuzzy Front End.
On the one hand, the term informal taxonomy consequently indicates that natural language is used for
modeling. On the other hand, informal means that some guidelines for taxonomic logic have been
sacrificed to enhance readability. To illustrate this procedure, figure 101 shows an excerpt of the
formally strict taxonomy for idea assessment and selection.
continuous
internal input
component 01
continuous
internal input
continuous
internal input
component 02
discontinuous
internal input
component 01
input
internal input external input
discontinuous
internal input
continuous
internal input
component 03
discontinuous
internal input
component 02
continuous
external input
...
...
discontinuous
internal input
component 03
... ...
figure 101 Taxonomically correct representation of input (excerpt)
discontinuous
external input
...
...