Faceted Navigation Design Tom Reamy Chief Knowledge Architect KAPS Group Knowledge Architecture Professional Services

2 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

3 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

4 Three Environments: E-Commerce

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6 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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11 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 ( to , last 30 days) – Publisher – Alphabetical and/or Topical – Organization – Content Type – list – newspapers, financial reports, etc.

12 General Internet Environment Text 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

13 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

14 Automatic Facets – Special Issues Text 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

15 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

16 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

17 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

18 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

19 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

20 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

21 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 – 12 th cent – 3 items – 17 th cent – 3,058  Precision of unit values – very important!

22 Designing Faceted Classification Systems Selection 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

23 Designing Faceted Classification Systems: Selection of Facets - Complete Model of a domain Bliss Bibliographic Classification (BC2)  Thing / Entity  Kind  Part  Property  Material  Process  Operation  Patient  Product  By-product  Agent  Space  Time

24 Designing Faceted Classification Systems Selection 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

25 Designing Faceted Classification Systems Selection of Facets: Practice Flamenco Architecture Search – Marti Hearst  Periods – 17 th -18 th 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

26 Designing Faceted Classification Systems KAPS 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

27 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 Reamy KAPS Group Knowledge Architecture Professional Services