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Taxonomies and Faceted Navigation
Getting the Best of Both
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
Implementing Facets and Taxonomies
Combining Taxonomies and Facets
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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Faceted Navigation: The Next Revolution
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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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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History of Facets
S. R. Ranganathan – 1960’s (Taxonomies – Aristotle)– Issue of Compound Subjects– The Universe consists of PMEST
• Personality, Matter, Energy, Space, Time 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
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Essentials of TaxonomiesInternal Organization
A hierarchy does not a taxonomy make.– Taxonomy, browse structure, file structure– Thesaurus, catalog, controlled vocabulary
Two basic meanings – Formal and Browse 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
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Essentials of Taxonomies
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– Facets are mostly about things and their properties
Taxonomies applied to 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.
Simple View:– Taxonomies = complex concepts that are applied to documents– Facets = one dimension of things
More Complicated– Documents are things – can have facet attributes – example –
ContentType (format to purpose)– Facets can have hierarchical structure– Hybrid facets can have a taxonomic structure
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Implementing Facets and Taxonomies Essentials of Faceted Navigation
Not a Yahoo-style Browse– Computer Stores under Computers and Internet– One value per facet per entity
Faceted Navigation – Facets are filters, multidimensional– Browse within a facet, filter by multiple facets
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
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A Sideways Look at Faceted NavigationMiles wants a Pinot NoirAnd he doesn’t want any ____________ Merlot!
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Implementing Facets and Taxonomies Faceted Navigation: Advantages
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
• Ability to Handle Compound Subjects
Trick Users into “using” Advanced Search• wine where color = red, price = x-y, etc.
• Click on color red, click on price x-y, etc.
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Implementing Facets and Taxonomies Faceted Navigation: Advantages
Systematic Advantages: – Need fewer Elements– 4 facets of 10 nodes = 10,000 node taxonomy
Content Management Advantages:• Easier to “categorize” – not as conceptual
• Fewer = simple, can use auto-classification better
• Flexible – can add new facets, elements in facet
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Implementing Facets and Taxonomies Faceted Navigation: Disadvantages Lack of Standards for Faceted Classifications
• Every project is unique customization
Difficulty of expressing complex relationships • Simplicity of internal organization
Loss of Browse Context• Difficult to grasp scope and relationships
Essential Limit of Faceted Navigation– Limited Domain Applicability – type and size– Entities not concepts, documents, web sites
Trade off between simplicity (power and ease of understanding) and complexity (real world)
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Implementing Facets and Taxonomies 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
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Implementing Facets and Taxonomies Taxonomy: Advantages Rich Context
– Related concepts – Generalization and specification– Browse – variety of types of relationships
Standard taxonomies available– Build on work of others– Communication with others
Multi-purpose – Search – indexing, keywords
• Semantic signature of document– Browse – conceptual context– Applications - Alerts based on meaning in a document
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Implementing Facets and Taxonomies Taxonomy: Advantages
Knowledge Representation– Higher level relationships– User focus – their concept levels, nomenclature
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
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Implementing Facets and Taxonomies Taxonomy: Disadvantages
Large, difficult to develop Pre-coordinated - can’t anticipate all of user’s needs Formal taxonomies do not represent user’s perspective Taxonomies are more difficult to use – often not clear
where to go More difficult to use with auto-categorization Expensive
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Implementing Facets and Taxonomies When to Use Taxonomies
Complex Relationships– If target is understand a rich set of related resources – yes– If target is to buy an object - no
Semantic – If meaning in documents is primary – yes– If targets are things or data documents - no
Primary content is rich collection of documents– Documents not about two or three things – multiple concepts,
aboutness and minor topics– Full text index mapped to taxonomy – support multiple perspectives
into content, different purposes
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Combining Facets and TaxonomiesDevelopment Issues – Facets
Reflect current usage – expert community and user community
Flexibility – allows for additions of new subject, facets, entities at any point in the system
Match the structure to domain and task– Users can understand different structures
General: chronological, alphabetical, spatial, simple to complex, size or quantity, hierarchical, canonical
Precision of unit values – very important!
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Combining Facets and TaxonomiesDevelopment Issues – Facets
Facetization of Taxonomy– Same structure in multiple places in a taxonomy– Hidden elements – get at with user focus
• Content type – Presentation, Well Report
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
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Combining Facets and TaxonomiesDesign Issues 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
Balance – purity of facets (easy to understand) with reflecting user’s world view and tasks
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Combining Facets and TaxonomiesDesign Issues
Dominant Dimension– Semantic focus– Single Facet – Hotel = location
Equal facets or Main and Secondary facets– Number of facets, user population
Mixed paths or dedicated facet interface– Wine.com – specials, time sensitive facets– Facets within taxonomy – browse by wine type, then apply price,
region facets
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Facets and Taxonomies – Sample ImplementationsRich Information Access
Combining Subject Matter and Topical Facets– Organization, Assets, Activities + Topics– Browse Topics and filter by Assets & Activities
• Quality control for drilling new well in region X– Geography facet and terrorism taxonomy
• Bomb making in Sudan
Adding Attributes – Global and Local– Content Types – presentations, well reports, policy– Price – only shows up if intersection contains items with price
metadata
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Facets and Taxonomies – Sample Implementations Complex Work Space
Combine faceted taxonomies, attribute facets, file structure– People, Things, Events + Content Type
– File structure – where local group stores sets of related documents Links to wider universe
– Targeted links – by category, facet dimensions
• Find related people or policy documents– Advantage of global context and local fast access
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Facets and Taxonomies – Sample Implementations Ontologies and Alerts
Ontology is a model of the relationships of a particular domain.
Vice President – Related to– Other people, HR policies, business activities– Security rights, other implied behaviors
Alerts – Software – entity extraction, facet extraction– Old – if terms x,y,z appear– Better – complex search – Near, Not, InSentence– Better – Contains any of type x entity or facet (products), plus
complex conceptual content, plus certain values within a facet (buying activity), then send alert
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Faceted Taxonomy – ExampleKAPS Group Enterprise Taxonomy
Basic Six Dimensions– People
• individuals and communities
– Event – Location– Time– Entities/ Things– Information Resource –
types
Custom Facets / Taxonomies– Products / Services
• Applications / Technologies
Combine with subject matter taxonomies (MESH, etc.)
Ontologies– General Business
relationships– Industry specific
• Biotech Research Pipelines
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Conclusion
Taxonomies and facets are both part of intellectual infrastructure – supports multiple approaches, applications
Dynamic classification is better than pre-coordinated structures
– Combine formal power with ability to support multiple user perspectives
– Formal taxonomies are best for dynamic classification Find the right blend of pure facets, hybrid facets,
taxonomies, faceted taxonomies, ontologies, etc.– Design for your situation – eCommerce or Enterprise
Compound and Complex work, Complicated doesn’t
Questions?
KAPS Group
Knowledge Architecture Professional Services
http://www.kapsgroup.com