Next Generation Search:

Faceted Navigation

Tom Reamy Chief Knowledge Architect KAPS Group Knowledge Architecture Professional Services http://www.kapsgroup.com

Agenda

 Introduction: What is Faceted Navigation?

 When to Use Faceted Navigation  How to Develop Facet Classifications  Implementation of Faceted Navigation  Future of Faceted Navigation 2

What is Faceted Navigation?

      Faceted navigation will change enterprise search!

Faceted navigation will change the way business works!

Faceted navigation means the end of taxonomies!

Faceted navigation means no more metadata!

Faceted navigation will eventually replace search!

Faceted navigation will remove rust, polish your silver, feed the hungry, clothe the poor, and bring world peace!

 To All the Above – NAH!

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What are 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 category 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.

A winery is not a region is not a price is not a color.

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What are Facets?

Internal Organization

   Taxonomies – parent – child – Animal – Mammal – Zebra Browse Classification – cluster – Food and Dining – Catering - Restaurants Facets – variety – of units, of structure – – Date or price – numerical range Location – big to small (partonomy) – Winery - alphabetical 5

What is Faceted Navigation?

    Not a Yahoo-style Browse – – Computer Stores under Computers and Internet One value per facet per entity Faceted Navigation is not hierarchical – Tree – travel up and down, not across – Facets are filters, multidimensional Facets are applied at search time – post-coordination, not pre-coordination [Advanced Search] Faceted Navigation is an active interface – dynamic combination of search and browse 6

History of Faceted Navigation

  Relatively New – Taxonomies - Aristotle S. R. Ranganathan – 1960’s – Issue of Compound Subjects – – A Facet for All Things • • 46 canons, 13 postulates, 22 principles 3 Planes – Idea, Verbal, Notational The Universe consists of PMEST • Personality, Matter, Energy, Space, Time 7

History of Faceted Navigation

  Classification Research Group 1950’s, 1970’s – – – – Facet analysis as basis for all bibliographic classifications Based on Ranganathan, simplified Principles: • • Division – a facet must represent only one characteristic Mutual Exclusivity More flexible, less doctrinaire Classification Theory to Web Implementation – – An Idea waiting for a technology Multiple Filters / dimensions 8

A Sideways Look at Faceted Navigation Miles wants a Pinot Noir And he doesn’t want any ____________ Merlot!

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When to Use Faceted Navigation Advantages

  Systematic Advantages: – – Need fewer Elements • 4 facets of 10 nodes = 10,000 node taxonomy Ability to Handle Compound Subjects Content Management Advantages: • • • Easier to “categorize” – not as conceptual Fewer = simple, can use auto-classification better Flexible – can add new facets, elements in facet 10

When to Use Faceted Navigation Advantages: Implementation

    More intuitive – easy to guess what is behind each door • Simplicity of internal organization • 20 questions – we know and use Dynamic selection of categories • Allow multiple perspectives Trick Users into “using” Advanced Search • • wine where color = red, price = x-y, etc.

Click on color red, click on price x-y, etc.

Flexible – can be combined with other navigation elements 11

When to Use Faceted Navigation Disadvantages



Systematic Disadvantages:

– Lack of Standards for Faceted Classifications • Every project is unique customization – Difficulty of expressing complex relationships • Simplicity of internal organization 

Content Management Disadvantages:

– Difficulty of Facet Selection • • Not conceptual domain analysis Need user and task analysis 12

When to Use Faceted Navigation Disadvantages



Implementation Disadvantages:

– Loss of Browse Context • Difficult to grasp scope and relationships – No immediate support for popular subjects 

Essential Limit of Faceted Navigation

– Limited Domain Applicability – type and size – Entities not concepts, documents, web sites 13

When to Use Faceted Navigation

    Type of Collections – – Small to medium sized sets of things Homogenous set of entities Arbitrary Categorization of Domain – – Taxonomy of Office Supplies – yes Taxonomy of Life, Life Insurance – no.

Nature of the domain and tasks – Multi-dimensional area – no single hierarchy – Nature of Important distinctions Can Create a Complete Set of Facets – 3 or more mutually exclusive dimensions 14

Developing Facet Structure: 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 15

Developing Facet Structure: Selection of Facets: Theory Bliss Bibliographic Classification (BC2)

       Thing / Entity Kind Part Property Material Process Operation       Patient Product By-product Agent Space Time 16

Developing Facet Structure: 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 17

Developing Facet Structure: Selection of Facets: Practice Flamenco Architecture Search

      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 18

Developing Facet Structure: Selection of Facets: Practice Software

    Products – Hierarchy product to individual commands Applications – Use to which a product applies Organizations – Businesses, customers People – Internal and external    Domain Objects – technologies Events – Conferences, time based Publications – Documents, web pages 19

Developing Facet Structure: Selection of Facets

  Two Sources – domain and users model of domain Domain – “make sure the facets reflect the purpose, subject, and scope of the classification system – Mutual Exclusivity  – Homogeneity User’s Model of the Domain – – Suitability of Facets and Facet Labels Support for user tasks • Surveys, search log analysis 20

Developing Internal Facet Structure

     Reflect current usage – expert community and user community Flexibility – allows for additions of new subject, facets, entities at any point in the system General: chronological, alphabetical, spatial, simple to complex, size or quantity, hierarchical, canonical Match the structure to domain and task – Users can understand different structures Precision of unit values – very important!

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Developing Internal Facet Structure

    Balance – number of items vs. complete model – – 12 th 17 th cent – 3 items cent – 3,058 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 22

Developing Facets: Tools and Techniques General Guide to Facet Development

    Domain Collection – – Database or Catalog Unstructured content – Much more difficult Preliminary Facet Selection – “Common Sense” – It is library science – Experts Domain View Entity Listing – Automatic Software for documents User Analysis – tasks, labeling, communities 23

Developing Facets: Tools and Techniques General Guide to Facet Development

    Facet Refinement – – Exhaustive, Balance Design Internal Facet Structures Design Faceted navigation – – – Single facet at top Progressive refinement or filtering Equal ranked facets or primary-secondary facets Usability studies – Integration with browse/search - Findability – – Ordering of the facets Sorting within facets Monitor usage and refine.

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Developing Facets: Tools and Techniques Software Tools

 Entity / Noun Phrase Extraction – Inxight – 50+ predefined classified dimensions • Controlled Vocabulary • Classification of all entities – Revision, testing, maintenance  Implementation – – XFML – Subset of Topic Maps, Facetmap Database – SQL – Endeca, Siderean 25

Implementation of Faceted Navigation Sample Sites

  Bad – – Single set of facets, select and browse • It’s just another category “Faceted” Search • It’s just advanced search Better – Combination of single facet browse and search  Good – Multiple facet browse and search 26

Implementation of Faceted Navigation Usability Issues

 Equal facets or Main and Secondary facets – Number of facets, user population  Links, Pull down Menus, Child Pages – Size of element set, granularity  Mixed paths or dedicated facet interface – – Wine.com – specials, time sensitive facets Facets within taxonomy – browse by wine type, then apply price, region facets 27

Future of Faceted Navigation

  E-commerce Sites – Biggest Growth Webdesignpractices – – 69% used faceted navigation 77% used navigation, 6% used faceted classification in search but no browse, 17% had both search and browse – – – 67% only used single point entry, no progressive filtering – not really facets, just categories Computers, Gifts, Kitchen Ware, Music/Video – Yes Office Supplies – no 28

Future of Faceted Navigation

 Enterprise Applications – Selected areas: supplies, forms, etc.

• Software Libraries – – Yellow Pages, Faceted Site Map Personalization – Matching facet selection to task, user community, and domain – Business Rules and Facet Relationships • If AND THEN tag the story for text mining, Fact Extraction 29

Future of Faceted Navigation

   Faceted Taxonomies – Advantages – smaller, scalability, conceptual clarity – – More complex, conceptual entities and relationships When to use: • • Size of element set Complexity of domain – concepts, documents, web pages Combining subject matter and facets – Issue – empty intersection – But if it is dynamically generated – then simply drop empty intersections - example – Convera – Geography facet and terrorism taxonomy Browse – need to collapse taxonomy – from indexing 30

Faceted Taxonomy – Example KAPS Group Enterprise Taxonomy

 Basic Six Dimensions – – – – – – People • individuals and communities Event Location Time Entities/ Things Information Resource – types    Custom – Products / Services • Applications / Technologies Rules – – Attributes – credit limit Function – credit management Combine with subject matter taxonomies 31

Conclusion

       Faceted Navigation is not the answer, but it’s a good additional tool for the right domains Easy to use and understand, but can be difficult to develop Limited enterprise use, but growing – site maps, etc.

Importance of user/task modeling Creating standards and taxonomies can reduce the amount of customization for each project Flexible – can start small and build or start with giant taxonomy and select.

Faceted Navigation means more structure, taxonomies, metadata, not less – and that is a good thing 32

Questions?

Tom Reamy tomr@kapsgroup.com

KAPS Group Knowledge Architecture Professional Services http://www.kapsgroup.com

Faceted Navigation Resources

 Articles – Faceted Classification Resource Collection • http://deyalexander.com/resources/faceted-classification.html

– – – A Simplified Model for Facet Analysis • http://iainstitute.org/pg/a_simplified_model_for_facet_analysis.ph

p Mailing List for Faceted Classification • http://www.poorbuthappy.com/fcd/ Study – Facets on the Web (75 ecommerce sites) • http://mypage.iu.edu/%7Eklabarre/facetstudy.html

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Faceted Navigation Resources

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Example Implementations

– – – Berkeley SIMS – Flamenco http://bailando.sims.berkeley.edu/flamenco.html

Facetmap – demo’s – www.facetmap.com

Commercial – Wine.com (and 75 others– see articles)

Tools

– Inxight – entity and fact extraction – www.inxight.com

– – – ClearForest Verity – http://www.clearforest.com/ http://www.verity.com

Convera – Facet Taxonomies www.convera.com

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Faceted Navigation Resources

 – – – – –

Vendors

– – – Atomz http://www.atomz.com

Dieselpoint – http://www.dieselpoint.com

EasyAsk – http://www.easyask.com

Endeca – http://www.endeca.com

iPhrase – http://www.iphrase.com

Siderean Software http://www.siderean.com/ Aduna – http://aduna.biz/index.html

I4ii – http://www.i411.com

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Faceted Navigation Resources

 Articles – – – – – How to Make a Faceted Classification and Put It On the Web • http://www.misatonic.org/library/facet-web-howto.html

Putting Facets on the Web: An Annotated Bibliography • http://www.miskatonic.org/library/facet-biblio.html

Ecommerce – cooking and kitchen – Faceted Navigation http://www .

Extended Faceted Taxonomies for Web Catalogs • http://www.ercim.org/publication/Ercim_News/enw51/tzitzikas.html

Webdesignpractices – study of ecommerce use of faceted navigation – Use of Faceted Classification • http://www.webdesignpractices.com/navigation/facets.html

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