Directory: Faceted classification

An alternative to hierarchies...

The Diamond Wiki project is an attempt to combine faceted navigation with wiki- and blog-style features.

Faceted Classification of Information

Given the significant difficulties in categorizing books, papers, and articles using traditional library classification techniques, it would seem next to impossible for humans to classify the small chunks of rapidly changing information that characterize information-intensive business environments. But it’s not. Library and information science professionals have already provided the foundations of an alternative to traditional classification techniques: faceted classification.

Topicmaps.Org is an independent consortium of parties interested in developing the applicability of the Topic Maps Paradigm to the World Wide Web, by leveraging the XML family of specifications as required.

Lately I've been hearing a lot about Faceted Classification. I'm not sure who was the first to coin it but it's a navigation method that seems to work very well when you have a large list of items you need to classify and browse.

XFML Core is an open XML format for publishing and sharing hierarchical faceted metadata and indexing efforts. XFML Core is lightweight and easy to implement, yet uniquely powerful.

PAD is the Portable Application Description, and it helps authors provide product descriptions and specifications to online sources in a standard way, using a standard database format that will allow webmasters and program librarians to automate program listings. PAD saves time for both authors and webmasters.

We are creating a search interface framework, called Flamenco, whose primary design goal is to allow users to move through large information spaces in a flexible manner without feeling lost. A key property of the interface is the explicit exposure of hierarchical faceted metadata, both to guide the user toward possible choices, and to organize the results of keyword searches.

A list for discussing the practice of faceted classification. See http://poorbuthappy.com/fcd

In this post, two threads are at work. The first addresses an issue often raised in user-centered design, which is that its discipline and process don't encourage innovation--many people equate UCD with usability engineering, a practice which seems to limit creativity, encouraging designs similar to those already out there, because that's what people are familiar with. During Adaptive Path's Web2001 presentation, a question from audience was, "How do user experience methods lead to innovation?"