Faceted browser
Encyclopedia
Faceted search, also called faceted navigation or faceted browsing, is a technique for accessing information organized according to a faceted classification
system, allowing users to explore a collection of information by applying multiple filters. A faceted classification system classifies each information element along multiple explicit dimensions, enabling the classifications to be accessed and ordered in multiple ways rather than in a single, pre-determined, taxonomic
order.
Facets correspond to properties of the information elements. They are often derived by analysis of the text of an item using entity extraction techniques or from pre-existing fields in a database such as author, descriptor, language, and format. Thus, existing web-pages, product descriptions or online collections of articles can be augmented with navigational facets.
's Special Interest Group on Information Retrieval
provided the following description of the role of faceted search for a 2006 workshop:
researchers, and to some extent among computer science
researchers specializing in information retrieval
.
The most notable academic efforts in faceted search are the following:
was a strong proponent of a faceted classification
system for library materials, he did not succeed in replacing the pre-coordinated Dewey Decimal Classification
system with his faceted colon classification
scheme. Nonetheless, online library catalogs, also known as OPAC
s, have increasingly adopted faceted search interfaces. Noted examples include the North Carolina State University
library catalog (part of the Triangle Research Libraries Network) and the OCLC Open WorldCat
system.
Faceted classification
A faceted classification system allows the assignment of multiple classifications to an object, enabling the classifications to be ordered in multiple ways, rather than in a single, predetermined, taxonomic order. A facet comprises "clearly defined, mutually exclusive, and collectively exhaustive...
system, allowing users to explore a collection of information by applying multiple filters. A faceted classification system classifies each information element along multiple explicit dimensions, enabling the classifications to be accessed and ordered in multiple ways rather than in a single, pre-determined, taxonomic
Taxonomy
Taxonomy is the science of identifying and naming species, and arranging them into a classification. The field of taxonomy, sometimes referred to as "biological taxonomy", revolves around the description and use of taxonomic units, known as taxa...
order.
Facets correspond to properties of the information elements. They are often derived by analysis of the text of an item using entity extraction techniques or from pre-existing fields in a database such as author, descriptor, language, and format. Thus, existing web-pages, product descriptions or online collections of articles can be augmented with navigational facets.
Development
The Association for Computing MachineryAssociation for Computing Machinery
The Association for Computing Machinery is a learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 as the world's first scientific and educational computing society. Its membership is more than 92,000 as of 2009...
's Special Interest Group on Information Retrieval
Special Interest Group on Information Retrieval
SIGIR is the Association for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on Information Retrieval. The scope of the group's specialty is the theory and application of computers to the acquisition, organization, storage, retrieval and distribution of information; emphasis is placed on working with...
provided the following description of the role of faceted search for a 2006 workshop:
The web search world, since its very beginning, has offered two paradigms:
- Navigational search uses a hierarchy structure (taxonomy) to enable users to browse the information space by iteratively narrowing the scope of their quest in a predetermined order, as exemplified by Yahoo! Directory
Yahoo! DirectoryThe Yahoo! Directory is a web directory that rivals the Open Directory Project in size. The directory was Yahoo!'s first offering. When Yahoo! changed to crawler-based listings for its main results in October 2002, the human-edited directory's significance dropped, but it was still being updated in...
, DMOZOpen Directory ProjectThe Open Directory Project , also known as Dmoz , is a multilingual open content directory of World Wide Web links. It is owned by Netscape but it is constructed and maintained by a community of volunteer editors.ODP uses a hierarchical ontology scheme for organizing site listings...
, etc.- Direct search allows users to simply write their queries as a bag of words in a text box. This approach has been made enormously popular by Web search engine
Web search engineA web search engine is designed to search for information on the World Wide Web and FTP servers. The search results are generally presented in a list of results often referred to as SERPS, or "search engine results pages". The information may consist of web pages, images, information and other...
s.
Over the last few years, the direct search paradigm has gained dominance and the navigational approach became less and less popular. Recently a new approach has emerged, combining both paradigms, namely the faceted search approach. Faceted search enables users to navigate a multi-dimensional information space by combining text search with a progressive narrowing of choices in each dimension. It has become the prevailing user interaction mechanism in e-commerce sites and is being extended to deal with semi-structured dataSemi-structured dataSemi-structured data is a form of structured data that does not conform with the formal structure of tables and data models associated with relational databases but nonetheless contains tags or other markers to separate semantic elements and enforce hierarchies of records and fields within the data...
, continuous dimensions, and folksonomiesFolksonomyA folksonomy is a system of classification derived from the practice and method of collaboratively creating and managing tags to annotate and categorize content; this practice is also known as collaborative tagging, social classification, social indexing, and social tagging...
.
Projects
Within the academic community, faceted search has attracted interest primarily among library and information scienceLibrary and information science
Library and information science is a merging of the two fields library science and information science...
researchers, and to some extent among computer science
Computer science
Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...
researchers specializing in information retrieval
Information retrieval
Information retrieval is the area of study concerned with searching for documents, for information within documents, and for metadata about documents, as well as that of searching structured storage, relational databases, and the World Wide Web...
.
The most notable academic efforts in faceted search are the following:
- Research on view-based systems, led by Steve Pollitt at the University of HuddersfieldUniversity of HuddersfieldThe University of Huddersfield is a university located in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, England.- History :The University traces its roots back to a Science and Mechanic Institute founded in 1825...
. - The Flamenco project, led by Marti Hearst at the University of California, BerkeleyUniversity of California, BerkeleyThe University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
. - The Relation Browser project, led by Gary Marchionini at the University of North CarolinaUniversity of North CarolinaChartered in 1789, the University of North Carolina was one of the first public universities in the United States and the only one to graduate students in the eighteenth century...
. - The Haystack and SIMILE projects, led by David KargerDavid KargerDavid Karger is a Professor of Computer Science and a member of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . He received an AB from Harvard University and a PhD in computer science from Stanford University. Dr...
at the Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyMassachusetts Institute of TechnologyThe Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
. - The mSpace project, led by m.c. schraefel at the University of SouthamptonUniversity of SouthamptonThe University of Southampton is a British public university located in the city of Southampton, England, a member of the Russell Group. The origins of the university can be dated back to the founding of the Hartley Institution in 1862 by Henry Robertson Hartley. In 1902, the Institution developed...
. - The CiteSeerXCiteSeerXCiteSeerX is a public search engine and digital library and repository for scientific and academic papers with a focus on computer and information science. It is loosely based on the previous CiteSeer search engine and digital library and is built with a new open source infrastructure, SeerSuite,...
project at the Pennsylvania State UniversityPennsylvania State UniversityThe Pennsylvania State University, commonly referred to as Penn State or PSU, is a public research university with campuses and facilities throughout the state of Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1855, the university has a threefold mission of teaching, research, and public service...
allows faceted search for academic documents and continues to expand into other facets such as table search.
Mass market use
Faceted search has become a popular technique in commercial search applications, particularly for online retailers and libraries. An increasing number of enterprise search vendors provide software for implementing faceted search applications.Online retail
Online retail catalogs were among the earliest applications of faceted search, reflecting both the faceted nature of product data (i.e., most products have a type, brand, price, etc.) and the ready availability of the data in retailers' existing information systems. In the early 2000s, retailers started using faceted search, leading to its ubiquity today on their online storefronts.Libraries
Although the noted librarian RanganathanS. R. Ranganathan
Shiyali Ramamrita Ranganathan was a mathematician and librarian from India. His most notable contributions to the field were his five laws of library science and the development of the first major analytico-synthetic classification system, the colon classification...
was a strong proponent of a faceted classification
Faceted classification
A faceted classification system allows the assignment of multiple classifications to an object, enabling the classifications to be ordered in multiple ways, rather than in a single, predetermined, taxonomic order. A facet comprises "clearly defined, mutually exclusive, and collectively exhaustive...
system for library materials, he did not succeed in replacing the pre-coordinated Dewey Decimal Classification
Dewey Decimal Classification
Dewey Decimal Classification, is a proprietary system of library classification developed by Melvil Dewey in 1876.It has been greatly modified and expanded through 23 major revisions, the most recent in 2011...
system with his faceted colon classification
Colon classification
Colon classification is a system of library classification developed by S. R. Ranganathan. It was the first ever faceted classification. The first edition was published in 1933. Since then six more editions have been published...
scheme. Nonetheless, online library catalogs, also known as OPAC
OPAC
An Online Public Access Catalog is an online database of materials held by a library or group of libraries...
s, have increasingly adopted faceted search interfaces. Noted examples include the North Carolina State University
North Carolina State University
North Carolina State University at Raleigh is a public, coeducational, extensive research university located in Raleigh, North Carolina, United States. Commonly known as NC State, the university is part of the University of North Carolina system and is a land, sea, and space grant institution...
library catalog (part of the Triangle Research Libraries Network) and the OCLC Open WorldCat
WorldCat
WorldCat is a union catalog which itemizes the collections of 72,000 libraries in 170 countries and territories which participate in the Online Computer Library Center global cooperative...
system.
See also
- Exploratory searchExploratory searchExploratory search is a specialization of information exploration which represents the activities carried out by searchers who are either:[1]* a) unfamiliar with the domain of their goal * b) unsure about the ways to achieve their goals * c) or even unsure about their...
- Faceted classificationFaceted classificationA faceted classification system allows the assignment of multiple classifications to an object, enabling the classifications to be ordered in multiple ways, rather than in a single, predetermined, taxonomic order. A facet comprises "clearly defined, mutually exclusive, and collectively exhaustive...
- Human–computer information retrieval
- NoSQLNosqlIn computing, NoSQL is a broad class of database management systems that differ from the classic model of the relational database management system in some significant ways. These data stores may not require fixed table schemas, usually avoid join operations, and typically scale horizontally...
- Information ExtractionInformation extractionInformation extraction is a type of information retrieval whose goal is to automatically extract structured information from unstructured and/or semi-structured machine-readable documents. In most of the cases this activity concerns processing human language texts by means of natural language...
- Enterprise SearchEnterprise searchEnterprise search is the practice of making content from multiple enterprise-type sources, such as databases and intranets, searchable to a defined audience.-Enterprise search summary:...