MakersPlace is one of several marketplaces for rare digital art. Creators on the platform sell digital art via Ethereum Non-Fungible Token contracts, which essentially say that the art was made by the creator and is owned by the owner.
My role was to develop a controlled vocabulary for digital art. How should we categorize art? How do site visitors want to browse art? How do creators want to tag art? Furthermore, with a quality vocabulary for art, it should be easier to observe market trends, classify creators and collectors, and increase transaction volume. There are no known right answers, so we had a green field. Various platforms for other media have pursued various solutions, e.g. SoundCloud, Pandora, Medium, and Saatchi Art.
This case study covers the development of a taxonomy, from comparative research to combing the existing data to data entry and validation.