Complexities of Categorization

Using hair care products as an example I will go through an exercise that illustrates some of the tricky issues encountered with categorizing data.  Why do hair care products need categorization? Suppose we are creating a hair care shopping web site where consumers are guided to the right hair care products for their particular needs. Surprisingly, even simple shopping web sites need information architecture work (at some point in their lives) and even more surprising is that if you try to design the categorization up front it can get messy so quickly. This leads to the question of whether it even possible to get it right. What is so complex about categorization? Let’s explore…