Redefining Discoverability for
Creative Research through
Metadata & Taxonomy Redesign.
Tasks
This 12-week project evaluated the existing
Metadata and Taxonomy of Emily Carr University's
thesis e-collection, originally built on Islandora 7
using MODS.
The earlier schema struggled to represent the
interdisciplinary nature of creative research,
resulting in incomplete records, inconsistent taxonomy,
and poor discoverability.
With the university’s planned migration to Islandora 8 and Drupal,
the project aimed to:
Identify gaps in the existing Information Architecture
Design a user-centered metadata and taxonomy system
Propose an implementation roadmap for Islandora 8
Legacy Interface had
Limited Discovery
Built on Islandora 7 using the MODS schema, the system relied on rigid hierarchies and
keyword-based search. This limited how creative, interdisciplinary research could be
represented or discovered.
Prior to designing the
Metadata & Taxonomy,
I conducted a comprehensive
Environmental scan &
examined the user behaviour
Key Findings:
Navigational Systems
Key fields such as Technical Metadata,
Institutional Affiliations, and Person–Affiliation
relationships were not captured in the
existing schema.
Organizational Systems
Topic is the primary entry point for discovery.
Users often searched for theses by author
name.
The taxonomy for Design is incomplete and
lacks consistency.
Labelling Systems
The metadata showed inconsistent vocabulary,
with similar concepts labeled differently
across records.
UX Research
We benchmarked Canadian universities across disciplines and
interviewed design master’s students from across Vancouver.
Persona - for whom I designed
the new experience
26 y.o.
Sarah
🧑🎓
She is an International
design student.
📲
Has a Bachelor's in
Interaction Design
📕
Wants to explore other
disciplines in design &
some alumni's thesis
Master of design, Vancouver
Goal Sarah wanted to explore practice-based creative research,
understand different research methodologies, and find inspiration
for her own thesis project.
Needs She needed an easy-to-use search and filtering system, along
with an updated categorization structure that reflects
contemporary creative work.
Pain points Sarah found it difficult to locate relevant research because the
existing classification system was outdated and no longer aligned
with current academic practices.
I designed a Metadata framework & Taxonomy that helps Sarah
find research that feels relevant and inspiring. The system speaks
her language, connecting creative projects through themes,
materials, and methods instead of technical metadata fields.
I conducted a detailed review of the metadata and taxonomy used for both the Global navigation
and Main content. This involved analyzing how thesis records were described, what metadata
fields were applied, and how facets such as date, topic, genre, area, and document type were
structured. The goal was to understand how well these elements supported discoverability and
whether the existing taxonomy aligned with users’ mental models and research behaviours.
Existing Information Architecture
Redesigned Information Architecture
The new IA for Drupal unifies taxonomy from multiple metadata schemas,
Dublin Core, MODS, and XMP Basic Schema, to create a scalable,
connected structure that supports richer relationships between
creative works.
Scroll to see the full design.
Implementation roadmap
The Drupal system has no "official" Metadata Schema, allowing for greater
adaptability. This flexibility enabled two key improvements: expanding
Metadata standards and introducing a new content structure.
Metadata Standards
Drupal allows for multiple metadata standards, including Dublin Core, MODS, and
XMP Basic Schema. After installation, metadata rules were configured
under Configuration > Search and Metadata > Metatag, and then applying
dynamic token-based values such as [node:title] and [node:author]
to standardize metadata application.
Content type
In Drupal, a new content type is created by
navigating to Structure > Content Types, adding a new type such as "Theses Collection,"
and configuring its settings, including publishing options and workflows.
Once established, metadata fields were added through the Manage Fields section,
where appropriate field types, such as text or date, were selected, along with validation
rules to ensure data consistency.
High-Fidelity Site
In the first 60 days of launch
Browse Engagement increased by
After identifying the new Taxonomy and implementing it within Drupal, the
system was tested and iterated multiple times to ensure clarity and
consistency. The final high-fidelity website reflects this refined structure,
streamlined, searchable, and ready for live use.
