Thomas – first, faceted search/navigation is one possible techinique to use – but it is not a panacea. There are many types of techniques available (federated, for instance), which is why you must really start from the problem space definition (area of concern), and do the user research to find out the predominate information seeking behavior your users are going to be employing to achieve their goals. That said – I'll start by giving you some research papers you really should read, proceed to some ideas about why facets can work, what you should thing about, and follow by some examples.
Some research: Semantic Search *http://tinyurl.com/5ovz4u* Dynamic Taxonomies and guided navigation *http://tinyurl.com/6ah9kz* The Design of Browsing and berrypicking techiques for the online search interface. *http://tinyurl.com/2lyafa* ------ Why do facets work? Increased findability leads to increased business results • More people find what they're looking for – faster – thus improving conversion rate • Increased customer satisfaction and loyalty • Decreased customer service cost Opportunities for targeted merchandising • Up-selling based on selected facets (similar atributes might mean affinities in the customers mind) • Cross-selling based on selected facets • Each facet selected is valuable customer data (these are attributes customers are saying they are interested in!) The faceted interface is only as good as what lies behind it – this means implemenation of a faceted navigation for e-commerce or anything else WILL FAIL unless the IA work is done up front – this can be daunting…. • Good metadata • Useful • Accurate • Clear • User-centered taxonomy and labeling (test, test, test!) • Good search • Relevancy • Thesaurus (synonyms, acronyms, abbreviations, stemming, spelling variants, stop words) Your goal should be: Ensure users will notice the facets in the first place • Placement • Prominence • Connection to results Some Examples: PCs: PCConnection Books: Barnes and Noble Music: Tower Records Jobs: CareerBuilder Resaurants: Citysearch Recipes: Epicurious Tools: HomeDepot Travel: Kayak.com Things things to think about: • What facets should appear? • What order should the facets appear in? • Make sure there is normalization across categories for attributes – this can be time consuming • Looking at your logs (past user behavior can tell a lot about user information seeking behavior) • Click paths and feature usage • Search terms • Talk with your users, then talk to them again – and try to get some that can come back and review prototypes • Interviews • Survey • Minimize information overload • Never allow ---------- This is just a start to some things to consider and review. Go to Peter Morville's site on Search Design Patters to review alternatives, as well as examples of faceted search/navaition: http://www.findability.org/archives/000194.php Hope this helps, -- ~ will "Where you innovate, how you innovate, and what you innovate are design problems" --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Will Evans | User Experience Architect tel +1.617.281.1281 | [EMAIL PROTECTED] --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
