1. Faceted Navigation: Search and Browse Tom Reamy Chief Knowledge Architect KAPS Group Knowledge Architecture Professional Services http://www.kapsgroup.com

2. 2 Agenda  Introduction: Essentials of Facets and Taxonomies  Facets and Taxonomies in Enterprise Environment  Designing a Browse, Facets, Search Infrastructure  Future Trends  Conclusion

3. 3 KAPS Group: General  Knowledge Architecture Professional Services  Virtual Company: Network of consultants – 12-15  Partners – Convera, Inxight, FAST, etc.  Consulting, Strategy, Knowledge architecture audit  Taxonomies: Enterprise, Marketing, Insurance, etc.  Services: – Taxonomy development, consulting, customization – Technology Consulting – Search, CMS, Portals, etc. – Metadata standards and implementation – Knowledge Management: Collaboration, Expertise, e-learning – Applied Theory – Faceted taxonomies, complexity theory, natural categories

4. 4 Essentials of Facets  Facets are not categories – Entities or concepts belong to a category – Entities have facets  Facets are metadata - properties or attributes – Entities or concepts fit into one or more categories – All entities have all facets – defined by set of values  Facets are orthogonal – mutually exclusive – dimensions – An event is not a person is not a document is not a place.  Facets – variety – of units, of structure – Numerical range (price), Location – big to small – Alphabetical, Hierarchical - taxonomic

5. 5 Essentials of Taxonomies Internal Organization  Formal Taxonomy – parent – child relationship – Is-A-Kind-Of ---- Animal – Mammal – Zebra – Partonomy – Is-A-Part-Of ---- US-California-Oakland  Browse Classification – cluster of related concepts – Food and Dining – Catering - Restaurants  Taxonomies are multiple purpose – Indexing, browsing, communication, applications  Taxonomies deal with complex, not compound – Conceptual relationships – category membership – Contextual relationships – Computers & Software  Taxonomies deal with semantics & documents – Multiple meanings and purposes – Essential attributes of documents are not single value

6. 6 Taxonomies and Facets – Summary Is This a Facet?  Important! A facet is not the same as top level categories in a taxonomy.  Facets – easy to use, more intuitive, easier to develop and maintain  Taxonomy – richer knowledge representation, complex relationships and context, multi-purpose assets  Faceted Navigation is an active interface – dynamic combination of search and browse- dialogue – Facets are filters, multidimensional – Browse within a facet, filter by multiple facets

7. 7 Facets and Taxonomies Enterprise Environment  Enterprise Content – different world than eCommerce – 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  Enterprise – Question of Balance / strategy – More facets = more findability (up to a point) – Fewer facets = lower cost to tag documents  Facet structures are more complex than in eCommerce – Multiple structures, more subject like  Need to start with major research (KA Audit) – Content, users, business activities, information technologies

8. 8 Facets and Taxonomies Enterprise Environment – Case One – Taxonomy, 7 facets  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

9. 9 Facets and Taxonomies Enterprise Environment – Case Two – Taxonomy, 4 facets  Taxonomy of Subjects / Disciplines: – Geology > Petrology  Facets: – Organization > Division > Group – Process > Drill a Well > File Test Plan – Assets > Platforms > Platform A – Content Type > Communication > Presentations  Issues – Not enough facets – Wrong set of facets – business not information – Ill-defined facets – too complex internal structure

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12. 12 Facets, Search, Browse 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

13. 13 Facets, Search, Browse 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 – 4-8

14. 14 Facets, Search, Browse 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

15. 15 Facets, Search, Browse Enterprise Design Issues - Sources  User Research – KA audit – How do users think? – Share drives as a source for candidates, labels – but be careful  What labels do they use? – Assets vs. Facilities and instruments / Processes vs Activities – Issue – labels that people use to describe their business and label that they use to find information  Building Facets – facetize the taxonomy – Pull out facets – Chemistry – Agents/Compounds, Instruments Chemistry and Health -- methods  Current or projected metadata as source – Content Types – presentations, well reports, policy

16. 16 Facets and Taxonomies: Future Trends  Facets and Visualization – Simple - Browse visually, filter by words – Multiple Paths and multiple, mixed modes of presentation  Facets and Facts / Ontologies – Types of relationships: People have friends, family, bosses and employees, jobs – Implications of those relationships – doctor has patients, salesman has customers – Facets are a foundation for precise rules and relationships Define important types of relationships for each facet dimension.

17. 17 Facets and Taxonomies: Future Trends  Advanced Applications – Text and Data Mining, Alerts – Combining Subject Matter and Topical Facets – Map Topics and Facets Quality control for drilling new well in region X Geography facet and terrorism taxonomy Bomb making in Sudan  User Interface – Mashups (an unfortunate term) – Subscribe to alert on terrorism in Sudan – Can navigate to bomb making in Sudan – Can navigate to terrorism in Africa

18. 18 Facets and Taxonomies: Future Trends

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20. 20 Conclusion  Combine Taxonomy and Facets, not either/or – Combine formal power with ability to support multiple user perspectives  Mashups and facets are a natural combination  Taxonomies and facets are both part of intellectual infrastructure – support multiple approaches, applications  Design starts with self-knowledge – users, content, activities  The future is the combination of simple facets (name catalogs of entities) with rich taxonomies with complex semantics / ontologies  Compound and Complex work, Complicated doesn’t

21. Questions? Tom Reamy tomr@kapsgroup.com KAPS Group Knowledge Architecture Professional Services http://www.kapsgroup.com