Faceted SearchChristine Connors

Knowledge Architect, Intuit

About Christine

• Knowledge Architect, Intuit

• Former Metadata Architect, Raytheon

• MS Library & Information Science, Simmons College

• Cares about: Content Management, Knowledge Representation, Intelligent Search

What is faceted search?

• Using common object metadata to filter search results

• Parametric (field-based) search instead of full-text search

• Focus Your Results, Guided Search

A Typical Path

Create...

clutter

Organize...

> scale

• Folders

• Open Directory, dmoz.org

• DMS, CMS

• Folksonomy

Search...

tweak

• Ctrl-F or ⌘-F

• Desktop

• Enterprise

• Internet

Classification...

• Manual

• Automated

• Rules-based

• Hybrid

effort cost ≉ quality results+/or

Add Facets...

• Manual

• Rules-based

• concept

• System metadata

What’s the best way to do it?

Motivation?

• Reduce number of search hits

• Guide users

•Learn about the nature of the content being indexed

•Find connections across data

Assess• User Needs

• Personas

• Processes

• Content

• Metadata & Taxonomies

• Business Requirements

• Resources

Design

• User interface

• Text box plus

• Tree Style

• Directory Style

• Fielded

• Hack-able URLs

Remember• Size matters

• Complexity is seductive

• Lowest-common denominator is best

• Generalist, not Subject Matter Expert

• Front-load object tagging

Maintenance is critical to long-term success!