Editor's note: When I first met Bharat a few years ago, I was struck by his willingness to question standard narratives of how knowledge and language should be modelled. This was especially true when it came to representing diverse perspectives in a taxonomy. Language is rarely neutral and this chapter is intended to challenge all of us who work with taxonomies to make sure we don't disregard any groups of users in our quest to produce the ‘perfect’ taxonomy.

Introduction

The first step in looking at how your taxonomy will work for everyone is to acknowledge that all users are different and that every user's needs should be considered.

Understanding culture, diversity and bias is not an optional step, but a necessary one, because negative bias is something that can affect anyone at some point in their lives. If you ignore these perspectives, then your taxonomy may not be viewed as a success by the end-users of the terms you publish.

In this chapter, I will be using my experience of working in the National Health Service (NHS) in England and for my local city of Leeds. I explain how you can measure the success of your taxonomy by demonstrating how much you understand the end-users who will experience it. I also share practical tips and ideas on how you can try to be aware of culture, diversity and bias in the taxonomy authoring process.

What are terms in a cultural context?

Terms are words, phrases or labels applied to a concept that taxonomists wish to describe. Ideally, a single concept can have many different terms that can be understood by as many different people as possible. Most taxonomies, however, use a single preferred term as an attempt to be as close to the words that are used by a majority of their audience. This is so that they are recognised by as many people as possible.

Cultures can be defined as a way that a group of people understands their past, present and future. Every person born and brought up in a culture will experience what terms mean. This is because of the friends and family they talk to every day, the use of those terms in school and in government and how these terms are used to influence thinking in media like newspapers and adverts.