Faceted Navigation:Search and Browse

Tom ReamyChief Knowledge Architect

KAPS Group

Knowledge Architecture Professional Services

http://www.kapsgroup.com

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Agenda

Introduction: Essentials of Facets and Taxonomies

Facets and Taxonomies in Enterprise Environment

Designing a Browse, Facets, Search Infrastructure

Future Trends

Conclusion

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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

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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

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Essentials of TaxonomiesInternal 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

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Taxonomies and Facets – SummaryIs 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

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Facets and TaxonomiesEnterprise 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

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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

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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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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

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Facets, Search, BrowseEnterprise 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

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Facets, Search, BrowseEnterprise 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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Facets, Search, BrowseEnterprise 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

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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.

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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

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Facets and Taxonomies: Future Trends

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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

Questions?

Tom Reamytomr@kapsgroup.com

KAPS Group

Knowledge Architecture Professional Services

http://www.kapsgroup.com