Faceted NavigationDesign

Tom ReamyChief Knowledge Architect

KAPS Group

Knowledge Architecture Professional Services

http://www.kapsgroup.com

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Agenda

Introduction: Three Environments

– E-Commerce, General Internet, Enterprise– Design, Research

Design Issues and Approaches– Facets, Facet Structure, Faceted Navigation

Design of the Facet Classification Conclusion

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Facet Design: Three Environments

E-Commerce– Catalogs, small uniform collections of entities– Uniform behavior – buy this

Internet– Wildly different amount and type of content, no taggers– General Purpose – Flickr, Yahoo– Vertical Portal – selected content, more precise targets

Enterprise– More content, more types of content– Enterprise Tools – Search, ECM– Publishing Process – tagging, metadata standards

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Three Environments: E-Commerce

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Three Environments: E-Commerce

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eCommerce: Common Themes

Early Adopters of Faceted Navigation– Things, Product Catalogs

Balance of information and ads– Advertiser dominance – No– Auto-ads – Obituary for Obama

Price and Type are basics 1 or 2 filters (source / type) – No

– Intersection of facets is source of power

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Internet Design

Subject Matter taxonomy – Business Topics– Finance > Currency > Exchange Rates

Facets – Location > Western World > United States– People – Alphabetical and/or Topical - Organization– Organization > Corporation > Car Manufacturing > Ford– Date – Absolute or range (1-1-01 to 1-1-08, last 30 days)– Publisher – Alphabetical and/or Topical – Organization– Content Type – list – newspapers, financial reports, etc.

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General Internet EnvironmentText Mining, Vertical Portals Internet Content

– Scale – impacts design and technology – speed of indexing– Limited control – Association of publishers to selection of content to none– Major subtypes – different rules – metadata and results

Complex queries and alerts– Terrorism taxonomy + geography + people + organizations

Text Mining – General or specific content and facets and categories– Dedicated tools or component of Portal – internal or external

Vertical Portal – Relatively homogenous content and users– General range of questions

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Internet Environment: Common Themes

Standard Facets – People, Companies, Place, Industry Interactive interface – sliders, date ranges Taxonomy – just another facet?

– Keywords vs. simple taxonomy Semantics still hardest – summaries, related, rank Tag Clouds / Clusters – how useful? Common Mistake – facets not orthogonal

– Issues and Topics / Clusters and Taxonomies Good Information Architecture

– Space wars – summary or full facet display– Simplicity vs. research power

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Automatic Facets – Special IssuesText Analytics – auto-categorization, entity extraction Scale requires more automated solutions

– More sophisticated rules Rules to find and populate existing metadata

– Variety of types of existing metadata – Publisher, title, date– Multiple implementation Standards – Last Name, First / First Name, Last

Issue of disambiguation:– Same person, different name – Henry Ford, Mr. Ford, Henry X. Ford– Same word, different entity – Ford and Ford

Number of entities and thresholds per results set / document– Usability, audience needs

Relevance Ranking – number of entities, rank of facets

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Enterprise Environment – Example Facet / Taxonomy

Taxonomy of Subjects / Disciplines:– Science > Marine Science > Marine microbiology > Marine toxins

Facets:– Organization > Division > Group– Clients > Federal > EPA– Instruments > Environmental Testing > Ocean Analysis > Vehicle– Facilities > Division > Location > Building X– Methods > Social > Population Study– Materials > Compounds > Chemicals– Content Type – Knowledge Asset > Proposals

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Enterprise Environment

Enterprise Content – different world– More Content, more kinds, more unstructured– Not a catalog to start – less metadata and structured content – Complexity -- not just content but variety of users and activities

Combination of human and automatic metadata – ECM– Software aided - suggestions, entities, ontologies

Enterprise – Question of Balance / strategy– More facets = more findability (up to a point)– Fewer facets = lower cost to tag documents

Dominance of Semantics– Facets and Faceted Taxonomies

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Enterprise Design Issues - Interface

Good Information Architecture– Clutter of Facets and space wars– Number of facets and multiple types

Target Problem– Faceted navigation good for discovery and exploration– Good at reducing results sets – issue of losing information

Selection Sequence – what is best?– One facet at a time– Selection from multiple facets

• One each (adv search)• Random numbers and sequence

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Enterprise Design Issues - General

What is the right combination of elements?– Faceted navigation, metadata, browse, search, categorized

search results, file plan

What is the right balance of elements?– Dominant dimension or equal facets– Browse topics and filter by facet

When to combine search, topics, and facets?– Search first and then filter by topics / facet– Browse/facet front end with a search box

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Enterprise Design Issues - General

How many Facets do you need?– “Can’t we start with just 1 or 2 facets and see how it works?”

Balance of metadata overhead, findability, personalization– Distributed model reduces cost – enables more facets– ECM – publishing process, policy– Distributed taggers – users, user communities (2.0), KM-Library– Auto Populate – Organization, Location– Software – entity extraction, summarization, auto-categorization

Rule of Thumb: – Small catalog of homogenous items 3-4– Enterprise content – 6-8

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Enterprise Design Issues – Special Topics

Publisher / creator– Organization or Author – user preference, size

Internal Structure – Is it OK to have a facet organized by another facet?– Organization as a facet and as internal structure of the Facilities

facet

Candidates – don’t need a universal set that everyone agrees on– Location important for some, but not others

Hidden facets – only show up when the content calls for it?– Some content has special facets – price– Only shows up if intersection contains items with price metadata

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Designing Faceted Classification Systems

Match the structure to domain and task– Users can understand different structures

Level of Structure related to size of domain– Alphabetical – list, range

Number of Facets vs. Internal structure– People – list or sub-structure – organizations, functions, etc.

Labeling– Systematic coherence vs. user labels, tasks

Balance – number of items vs. complete model– 12th cent – 3 items– 17th cent – 3,058

Precision of unit values – very important!

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Designing Faceted Classification SystemsSelection of Facets: Theory

Issue - Complete Model of a domain Ranganathan – PMEST

– Personality – Person, animal, event– Matter – what x is made of– Energy – how x changes– Space – where x is– Time – when x happens

Three Planes – Idea, Verbal, Notational

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Designing Faceted Classification Systems:Selection of Facets - Complete Model of a domainBliss Bibliographic Classification (BC2)

Thing / Entity Kind Part Property Material Process Operation

Patient Product By-product Agent Space Time

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Designing Faceted Classification SystemsSelection of Facets: Practice Wine.com

Region– Australia, California

Type– Red Wine, White, Bubbly

Winery – Alphabetical listing

Price– $25 and below– $25-$50

Top Rated Wines– 90+ under $20

Top Sellers– Cabinet Sauvignon– Pinot Noir

Hot Features– Wine outlet– Sideways collection

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Designing Faceted Classification SystemsSelection of Facets: Practice Flamenco Architecture Search – Marti Hearst

Periods– 17th-18th century

Locations– Africa, Western Europe

Source– Person, catalog, schools

Materials– Chalk, clay

View Types– City views, drawings

Building Names– White House

Concepts– Cultural, Economic

People– Artist, Developer

Styles– Ancient, Mediterranean

Structure Types– Building, Human Settlements

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Designing Faceted Classification SystemsKAPS Group Enterprise Taxonomy

Basic Six Dimensions– People

• individuals and communities

– Event – Location– Time– Entities/ Things– Information Resource –

types

Custom – Products / Services

• Applications / Technologies

Combine with subject matter taxonomies

Rules – Attributes – credit limit– Function – credit

management

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Conclusions: Design

Find the right blend of pure facets, hybrid facets, taxonomies, faceted taxonomies, ontologies, etc.

– Design for your situation – eCommerce , Internet, or Enterprise Documents – more complicated than products, later start

– Need facets plus taxonomies, semantics Integrated design is essential – not facets as add on Dynamic classification is better than pre-coordinated structures

– Combine formal power with ability to support multiple user perspectives

– Formal taxonomies are best for dynamic classification

Questions?

Tom Reamytomr@kapsgroup.com

KAPS Group

Knowledge Architecture Professional Services

http://www.kapsgroup.com