Faceted search
Faceted search augments lexical search with a faceted navigation system, allowing users to narrow results
by applying filters based on a faceted classification of the items.[1] It is a parametric search technique.[2] A
faceted classification system classifies each information element along multiple explicit dimensions, facets,
enabling the classifications to be accessed and ordered in multiple ways rather than in a single, pre-
determined, taxonomic order.[1]
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.
Faceted search interfaces were first developed in the academic world by Ben Shneiderman, Steven Pollitt,
Marti Hearst, and Gary Marchionini in the 1990s and 2000s.[3][4][5][6] The most well-known of these
efforts was the Flamenco research project at University of California, Berkeley led by Marti Hearst.[7]
Concurrently, there was development of commercial faceted search systems, notably Endeca and Spotfire.
Within the academic community, faceted search has attracted interest primarily among library and
information science researchers, and to some extent among computer science researchers specializing in
information retrieval.[8]
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 catalogs pioneered the earliest applications of faceted search, reflecting both the faceted nature
of product data (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, in part due to
published studies that evaluated user search experience on popular sites.[9]
As of 2014, among the 50 largest US-based online retailers, 40% had implemented faceted search.[10]
Examples include the filtering options that appear in the left column on amazon.com or Google Shopping
after a keyword search has been performed.
Libraries and information science
In 1933, the noted librarian Ranganathan proposed a faceted classification system for library materials,
known as colon classification. In the pre-computer era, he did not succeed in replacing the pre-coordinated
Dewey Decimal Classification system.[11]
Modern online library catalogs, also known as online public access catalogs (OPAC), 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. The
CiteSeerX project[12] at the Pennsylvania State University allows faceted search for academic documents
and continues to expand into other facets such as table search.
See also
Enterprise search
Exploratory search
Faceted classification
Human–computer information retrieval
Information extraction
NoSQL
Voxound
References
1. Tunkelang, Daniel (2009). "Faceted Search" (https://doi.org/10.2200%2FS00190ED1V01Y2
00904ICR005). Synthesis Lectures on Information Concepts, Retrieval, and Services.
Morgan & Claypool. 1: 1–80. doi:10.2200/S00190ED1V01Y200904ICR005 (https://doi.org/1
0.2200%2FS00190ED1V01Y200904ICR005). S2CID 2430723 (https://api.semanticscholar.
org/CorpusID:2430723).
2. "Parametric Search, Faceted Search, and Taxonomies - New Idea Engineering" (http://www.
ideaeng.com/parametric-facet-taxonomy-0206). www.ideaeng.com. Retrieved 22 July 2022.
3. Shneiderman, Ben (1994). "Dynamic queries for visual information seeking". IEEE Software.
11 (6): 70–77. doi:10.1109/52.329404 (https://doi.org/10.1109%2F52.329404). hdl:1903/388
(https://hdl.handle.net/1903%2F388). S2CID 8021243 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/Corpu
sID:8021243).
4. Pollitt, Steven; Smith, Martin; Treglown, Mark; Braekevelt, Patrick (1996). "View-based
searching systems—progress towards effective disintermediation". Online Information 96
Proceedings: 433–441.
5. Yee, Ka-Ping; Swearingen, Kirsten; Li, Kevin; Hearst, Marti (2003-04-05). "Faceted
metadata for image search and browsing" (https://doi.org/10.1145/642611.642681).
Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. CHI '03.
New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery: 401–408.
doi:10.1145/642611.642681 (https://doi.org/10.1145%2F642611.642681). ISBN 978-1-
58113-630-2. S2CID 367518 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:367518).
6. Hill, Gary Marchionini; Interaction Design Laboratory, University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill Ben Brunk; Interaction Design Laboratory, University of North Carolina at Chapel (2003-
01-03). Towards a General Relation Browser: A GUI for Information Architects (http://worldca
t.org/oclc/751844113). Texas Digital Library. OCLC 751844113 (https://www.worldcat.org/ocl
c/751844113).
7. [1] (https://flamenco.berkeley.edu) Flamenco project
8. "SIGIR'2006 Workshop on Faceted Search - Call for Participation" (http://facetedsearch.goo
glepages.com). Facetedsearch.googlepages.com. 2006-08-10. Retrieved 2019-03-19.
9. Nielsen Norman Group. "The State of Ecommerce Search" (https://www.nngroup.com/article
s/state-ecommerce-search/). Nielsen Norman Group. Retrieved 2021-12-13. "In our first
study on ease of search experience for users, we concluded that '27% of task failures were a
result of not being able to locate a suitable item on the site, even though all of our tasks were
designed so there was always at least one item available.' "
10. Smashing Magazine: The Current State of E-Commerce Search (https://www.smashingmag
azine.com/2014/08/18/the-current-state-of-e-commerce-search/) Retrieved on 2014-08-27.
11. "Major classification systems : the Dewey Centennial" (https://archive.org/details/majorclassi
ficat00alle). 2007-08-01. Retrieved 2019-03-19.
12. CiteSeerX (http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/). Citeseerx.ist.psu.edu. Retrieved on 2013-07-21.
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