Faceted Navigation Research Articles

A framework for approximate product search using faceted navigation and user preference ranking

One of the problems that e-commerce users face is that the desired products are sometimes not available and Web shops fail to provide similar products due to their exclusive reliance on Boolean faceted search. User preferences are also often not taken into account. In order to address these problems, we present a novel framework specifically geared towards approximate faceted search within the product catalog of a Web shop. It is based on adaptations to the p-norm extended Boolean model, to account for the domain-specific characteristics of faceted search in an e-commerce environment. These e-commerce specific characteristics are, for example, the use of quantitative properties and the presence of user preferences. Our approach explores the concept of facet similarity functions in order to better match products to queries. In addition, the user preferences are used to assign importance weights to the query terms. Using a large-scale experimental setup based on real-world data, we conclude that the proposed algorithm outperforms the considered benchmark algorithms. Last, we have performed a user-based study in which we found that users who use our approach find more relevant products with less effort.

Rushing and Strolling among Answer Sets – Navigation Made Easy

Answer set programming (ASP) is a popular declarative programming paradigm with a wide range of applications in artificial intelligence. Oftentimes, when modeling an AI problem with ASP, and in particular when we are interested beyond simple search for optimal solutions, an actual solution, differences between solutions, or number of solutions of the ASP program matter. For example, when a user aims to identify a specific answer set according to her needs, or requires the total number of diverging solutions to comprehend probabilistic applications such as reasoning in medical domains. Then, there are only certain problem specific and handcrafted encoding techniques available to navigate the solution space of ASP programs, which is oftentimes not enough. In this paper, we propose a formal and general framework for interactive navigation toward desired subsets of answer sets analogous to faceted browsing. Our approach enables the user to explore the solution space by consciously zooming in or out of sub-spaces of solutions at a certain configurable pace. We illustrate that weighted faceted navigation is computationally hard. Finally, we provide an implementation of our approach that demonstrates the feasibility of our framework for incomprehensible solution spaces.

Knowledge Organization Affordances in a Faceted Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC)

ABSTRACT Faceted navigation is already a standard feature of contemporary Online Public Access Catalogs (OPACs). The article aims to indicate practices in this area and new affordances that faceted navigation provides. The content of 55 Polish university library websites and their OPACs using faceted navigation was analyzed. After selecting the subject facets, the source of the terms constituting their content was analyzed using the MARC 21 bibliographic record format structure. During the transfer of traditional KOS affordances to those of faceted navigation, the former knowledge organization (KO) structures were deconstructed, which may require the creation of a new kind of KOS.

Rushing and Strolling among Answer Sets - Navigation Made Easy

Answer set programming (ASP) is a popular declarative programming paradigm with a wide range of applications in artificial intelligence. Oftentimes, when modeling an AI problem with ASP, and in particular when we are interested beyond simple search for optimal solutions, an actual solution, differences between solutions, or number of solutions of the ASP program matter. For example, when a user aims to identify a specific answer set according to her needs, or requires the total number of diverging solutions to comprehend probabilistic applications such as reasoning in medical domains. Then, there are only certain problem specific and handcrafted encoding techniques available to navigate the solution space of ASP programs, which is oftentimes not enough. In this paper, we propose a formal and general framework for interactive navigation towards desired subsets of answer sets analogous to faceted browsing. Our approach enables the user to explore the solution space by consciously zooming in or out of sub-spaces of solutions at a certain configurable pace. We illustrate that weighted faceted navigation is computationally hard. Finally, we provide an implementation of our approach that demonstrates the feasibility of our framework for incomprehensible solution spaces.

Card Sorting for User Experience Design

Abstract This paper reviews types and uses of card sorting and how a relatively unpopularized variation of card sorting—‘repeated single-criterion sorting’—can be applied to the information architecture design of digital music services. A total of 52 respondents were asked to sort, using their own choice of criteria, 12 popular songs using an online card sorting tool. Once respondents had chosen a construct for a particular sort e.g. ‘Genre’, they placed each card into a named category, e.g. ‘Rock’, ‘Pop’, and were encouraged to repeat this process until they could think of no more constructs. High levels of agreement were found for a small number of constructs such as ‘genre’, ‘gender’ and ‘speed of song’, but the remaining constructs were individual to each respondent e.g. ‘songs that make me cry’. The results highlighted differences with current approaches to music categorization, as well as the potential for repeated single-criterion sorting to be used to design faceted navigation structures and form part of the user-centred design process.

Viral Science: Masks, Speed Bumps, and Guard Rails

The speed of science, especially while solving the recent pandemic puzzles, is causing concerns. We describe some salient issues as well as a framework for making the process of publishing, organizing, and retrieving scientific literature more efficient. Emerging building blocks leveraging AI, including natural language processing tools such as SciSight from the Allen Institute for AI, that permit faceted navigation and research group detection are highlighted.

Aspect ontology based review exploration

Abstract User feedback in the form of customer reviews, blogs, and forum posts is an essential feature of e-commerce. Users often read online product reviews to get an insight into the quality of various aspects of a product. Besides, users have different aspect preferences, and they look for reviews that contain relevant information regarding their preferred aspect(s). However, as reviews are unstructured and voluminous, it becomes exhaustive and laborious for users to find relevant reviews. Lack of domain knowledge about various aspects and sub-aspects of a product, and how they are related to each other, also add to the problem. Although this information could be there in product reviews, it is not easy for users to spot it instantly from the reviews. This paper seeks to address the above problems and presents two novel algorithms that summarize product reviews, and provides an interactive search interface, similar to popular faceted navigation. We solve the problem by creating an aspect ontology tree with high aspect extraction precision.

공연예술 콘텐츠 검색을 위한 패싯 내비게이션 인터페이스 구현

공연예술 콘텐츠 검색을 위한 패싯 내비게이션 인터페이스 구현

What’s in a word? : Rethinking facet headings in a discovery service

The emergence of Discovery systems has been well received by libraries who have long been concerned with offering a smorgasbord of databases that require either individual searching of databases or the problematic use of federated searching. The ability to search across a wide array of subscribed and open-access information resources via a centralized index has opened up access for users to a library’s wealth of information resources. This capability has been particularly praised for its ‘google like’ search interface, thereby conforming to user expectations for information searching. Yet, all discovery services also include facets as a search capability and thus provide faceted navigation which is a search feature that Google is not particularly well suited for. Discovery services thus provide a hybrid search interface. An examination of e-commerce sites clearly shows that faceted navigation is an integral part of their discovery systems. Many library OPACs also now are being developed with faceted navigation capabilities. However, the discovery services faceted structures suffer from a number of problems which inhibit their usefulness and their potential. This article examines a number of these issues and it offers suggestions for improving the discovery search interface. It also argues that vendors and libraries need to work together to more closely analyze the user experience of the discovery system.

The usability issues of faceted navigation in digital libraries

The last decade transformed faceted navigation from a “nice-to-have” into a “must-have functionality” for all online web services that contain a search function. The movement has been started by commercial websites, such as online clothing stores, with the purpose of facilitating access to the products. Now, faceted search seems to be more and more well-known within the community of information institutions and their digital services, too, as for example the online catalogue of the Library of Congress or Europeana show. In this context, as well, the feature is often sold as an added value to access the content of their sites in a more effective way. Still, experience shows that the use of faceted navigation in a digital library context is more complex than for online clothing stores. For this reason, it is important to focus on the usability of such functionalities and to test it as often as possible during implementation and regular use, as well. Site providers have to be aware of one important fact: a faceted search that has not been implemented correctly or does not work in the way the user expects it, will create frustration and/or not be used at all. This implies in a worst case scenario that users don’t come back to the site anymore, and may even spread their negative experience among the community. To prevent this, usability tests, either with experts or real users, should be conducted regularly. This can be done with common usability tests, using direct human interaction with a system, or with online tests, where test user are free to fill in the test whenever they want. In both cases, test results illuminate a system’s weaknesses and expose dysfunctional issues, which should be improved in order to offer a positive experience to its users. For more than five years, the project ACCEPT, a subproject of a Swiss national project called e-lib.ch, analyzes the usability and usefulness of digital libraries, by using user oriented methods. Experience has shown that filters provided through faceted navigation are considered as positive and very useful by end users. Nevertheless, based on different test results, several returning mistakes have been detected and it turns out that there are some ‘unwritten standards’ concerning e.g. position, labelling or ranking which should be respected to fulfil the aim of a good usability which users do expect of such web services. In this poster we will first give an introduction to faceted navigation, actual design issues and their use in digital libraries and then present testing methods, which can be easily applied in a digital library context. Together with a list of best practices concerning faceted navigation drawn out of different test experiences, the paper should give the reader all important information to evaluate its current faceted navigation and see where improvements could be made.

Dynamic faceted navigation in decision making using Semantic Web technology

Categorization in the decision making classifies decision makers' experiences about the world and provides a guide to reach a goal. This implies that dynamically providing categories reflecting the given decision context gives a great enhancement in decision quality. This study discusses the dynamic category selection under the Semantic Web environment, focusing on an implementation of a decision support system, the dynamic facet navigation system working with an ontology. Predefined fixed categories are provided to refine search results to evade use of complex queries and tedious review of search results, but they often output insensible information because of never reflecting the difference in search results. This paper proposes a dynamic category selection mechanism by using the total gain ratio under a given ontology, and a reordering scheme for resulted categories. It proves the validity of the proposed approach with a statistical analysis lastly.

Using Document Indexers for Faceted Search in Dataspaces

INTRODUCTION Two main ways of information retrieval are browsing and searching. Browsing demands information seekers' attention and time, and when the tasks are repetitive, fatigue sets in quickly (Yeh & Liu, 2011). Browsing, especially through page after page of alphabetical listings with a browser, could be frustrating to users. Research has been done to study the approaches to make the browsing experience more efficient and effective. Grouping information as categories during browsing, also called faceted browsing or faceted navigation, is one of the approaches proposed for enhancing the users' browsing experience. Faceted browsing offers the users an overview of results, and narrows their list (Yeh & Liu, 2011). Since browsing naturally involves gathering data with conceptual grouping, faceted browsing has been demonstrated in facilitating more effective browsing and information retrieval, and in speeding up the users' decision making process (Kim et al., 2014). Faceted search is a natural extension to faceted browsing. Searching is only effective if the query is formulated a priori (Kim et al., 2014). When the queries are difficult to define a priori, the search results may be irrelevant and the users may experience undesirable outcomes from their direct search alone. To make direct search more efficient, faceted search has been proposed. The faceted search approach integrates faceted browsing with direct search methods (Yeh & Liu, 2011), thus assisting users determine which portions of the facet contain more relevant and desired information (Perugini & Ramakrishnan, 2003). FLexible information Access using MEtadata in Novel COmbinations (FLAMENCO) was developed as an open source search interface framework (Yee et al., 2003). It utilizes faceted navigation for both browsing and searching. Since then, faceted searching has been used in various fields and has been proven to generate better search results than direct search (Hearst, 2006). Faceted search solicits and captures search keywords, then prunes out branches of the hierarchy irrelevant to the user's information need (Perugini, 2010). A major limitation of using faceted search is that categories are predefined and fixed regardless of the difference in search results. Recently, Kim et al. (2014) used semantic web to design a dynamic faceted search system. Their results showed that using it can save considerable time for users and improve the efficiency of search. Another key problem of a faceted search system is its limitation in searching within a very large and complex document domain that typically exists in big organizations and government agencies. These organizations usually create dataspaces to integrate and manage data and documents from many loosely connected heterogeneous data repositories. Some faceted-search systems show users all available facets and facet-values. This approach can quickly overwhelm the users and lead to diminished user experience and search performance (Sinha & Karger, 2005; Koren et al., 2008). Based on the extant designs on faceted browsing, faceted search, and dynamic faceted search, our research considers the use of a complex ontology defined to support the dynamic category selection. In particular, the categories are generated for the navigation of a document with relations to subdocuments. The sample ontology (Figure 1) shows that a conference proceeding has relations to two groups of subdocuments: editors and articles. In addition, an article has relations to a group of authors. Eventually, all categories in faceted navigation may include all the properties of a proceeding and its subdocuments (such as title, year, publisher, article title, and article author's last name). A user enters keywords to form a query based on the ontology and receives a result including proceedings categorized and arranged by a faceted search system (Figure 2). The result may still include a large collection of proceedings. …

국내 대학도서관 OPAC의 패싯 내비게이션 분석에 관한 연구

패싯 내비게이션의 구성 요소인 패싯의 명칭과 하위 구성 용어, 패싯의 순서, 지나치게 많은 검색 결과의 수 등이 이용자 중심적인지를 분석하였다. 연구 방법은 국내의 15개 대학도서관 목록에서 3개의 검색어로 검색한 결과를 분석하였으며, 이용자가 이들 용어에 대해서 느끼는 친숙도 조사도 함께 수행하였다. 국내 대학도서관들에서 제공하고 있는 발행년도와 총서명 등의 패싯 명칭과 멀티미디어와 비도서, 미디어 자료 등의 하위 용어들은 이용자들이 직관적으로 이해할 수 없었으며, 목록규칙에서 사용된 용어들과 사서들이 사용하는 용어들이 많았다. 그리고 패싯을 적용해도 검색 결과의 수가 많아지는 단점을 해결하기 위해서 적합성 순위화와 같은 기법을 적용할 필요가 있다. 그리고 지나치게 많은 하위 수준이 발생할 수 있는 가능성도 발견할 수 있었으며, 이것도 도서관 목록에 대한 이용자 경험에 악영향을 미칠 것으로 보인다.

Faceted search, social networking and interactive semantics

1 IntroductionThe most popular and basic techniques for accessing the Web are browse and search.Faceted search, also called faceted navigation or faceted browse, is a third technique thatenables users to access Web pages from different facets. A faceted search system can displaydifferent facets of the same set of Web pages at different steps in a search. Faceted search isalso a way to deal with the size of Web contents since it can locate the sought for contentthrough multi-step refinements on classifications from multiple facets [2, 5, 9]. Facetedsearch has been adopted in many applications such as e-learning, e-business, online library,and general search engines. However, research on its fundamental theory is neglected. Manyimportant problems are still open, such as the underlying theory for organizing resourcesfrom multiple dimensions, the generation of appropriate interactive query process, andadaptive interfaces. Research on the fundamental model and associated theory is criticalfor the development of faceted search.Classification and link are the most basic intelligent mechanisms for managing objectsand structuring space. Making use of classification and link is the natural way to manageWeb resources. Multi-dimensional classifications, called Resource Space Model, have beenused to manage various resources [13–16]. It is the theory, model and method that canorganize Web resources for faceted navigation.Classifications form and evolve with the evolution of society. Humans use words toindicate classifications to realize effective interaction [12]. Manually classifying Web re-sources is a straightforward approach to organize resources for faceted navigation. Togenerate facets automatically is the key to efficient faceted navigation. In Web navigationapplications, to extract the appropriate words that indicate classifications is the key togenerating facets for automatically faceted Web navigation.

대학도서관의 OPAC 유용성이 이용자의 만족도와 충성도에 미치는 영향

OPAC은 도서관의 소장 자료와 전자정보원을 검색하고 활용하는데 매우 중요한 인터페이스이다. 본 연구는 K대학교 도서관의 OPAC에서 구현된 키워드 검색, 통합검색, 풍부한 콘텐츠 제공, 패싯 네비게이션, 검색결과의 적합성 순위화, 철자오류 및 검색 수정기능, 자료추천, 이용자참여, RSS 등의 다양한 기능의 유용성이 이용자의 만족도와 충성도에 미치는 영향에 대하여 실증적으로 분석하였다. 아울러 이용자의 만족도와 충성도에 영향을 미치는 요인은 무엇인지 조사하여 OPAC의 만족도와 충성도를 향상시키기 위한 개선방안을 제시하였다. OPAC is a very important interface for user to use and search library collection and electronic resources. The purpose of this study is to analyze empirically the impact of OPAC usability on user satisfaction and loyalty in an university library setting. The OPAC functions investigated are keyword searching, integrated searching, faceted navigation, relevance ranking, spelling check, recommendations, user participation, and Really Simple Syndication(RSS), etc. This study investigated what usability effects on user satisfaction and loyalty and suggested the way to improve user satisfaction and loyalty.

Automatic faceted navigation

Automatic faceted navigation provides a set of navigation operations for users to browse one text or more texts from different facets of content without any input. One sentence or a sequence of sentences on a relatively independent and complete content in text constitutes a semantic unit. Semantic units on one topic may be in different locations and there are distances between semantic units. A semantic facet is a set of semantically close semantic units representing one aspect meaning of a text. This paper proposes a faceted navigation mechanism that can extract semantic units from texts, build a hierarchy of semantic facets, and navigate the hierarchy, so that users can obtain interested contents from text and navigate among semantic facets without any prior input. The proposed mechanism goes beyond cyberspace by considering the human reading processes. Experiments show the effectiveness of the proposed mechanism.

Faceted navigation framework for XML data

PurposeXML has become a standard data format for many applications and efficient retrieval methods are required. Typically, there are roughly two kinds of retrieval methods, namely path‐based method (e.g. XPath and XQuery) and keyword search, but these methods do not work when users do not have any concrete information need. To expand feasibility of XML data retrieval is an important task and this is the purpose of this paper.Design/methodology/approachThe paper's strategy is to apply faceted navigation for XML data. Faceted navigation is an exploratory search which enables the exploration of data making use of attributes, called facets. General faceted navigation methods are applied for attributed objects but XML data have no criteria because XML nodes are objects and facets. Thus, the paper's approach is to construct a framework to enable faceted navigation over XML data. It first extracts objects based on occurrence of nodes and facets. Then it constructs a faceted navigation interface for extracted objects and facets.FindingsThe framework achieves semi‐automatic construction of faceted navigation interface from an XML database. In the experiments, the show feasibility of the framework is shown by three faceted navigation interfaces using existing real XML data. On the other hand, the user study shows the retrieval method helps users to find required information.Originality/valueThere are only a few works which apply faceted navigation for XML data and these works are based on predefined objects and facets which need human effort. In contrast, this framework needs human decision making only when choosing objects and facets to be used in the faceted navigation interface.

Sagace: a web-based search engine for biomedical databases in Japan.

BackgroundIn the big data era, biomedical research continues to generate a large amount of data, and the generated information is often stored in a database and made publicly available. Although combining data from multiple databases should accelerate further studies, the current number of life sciences databases is too large to grasp features and contents of each database.FindingsWe have developed Sagace, a web-based search engine that enables users to retrieve information from a range of biological databases (such as gene expression profiles and proteomics data) and biological resource banks (such as mouse models of disease and cell lines). With Sagace, users can search more than 300 databases in Japan. Sagace offers features tailored to biomedical research, including manually tuned ranking, a faceted navigation to refine search results, and rich snippets constructed with retrieved metadata for each database entry.ConclusionsSagace will be valuable for experts who are involved in biomedical research and drug development in both academia and industry. Sagace is freely available at http://sagace.nibio.go.jp/en/.

KDC 조기표를 이용한 국내서의 패싯 내비게이션 기능 개선 방안

본 연구에서는 조기표를 활용하여 차세대 도서관 목록(NGC)에서 강조하는 검색 결과의 패싯 내비게이션 기능을 개선하고자 하였다. 조기표는 자료의 형식적인 측면이나 내용 측면을 체계적으로 나타내므로, 기존의 NGC에서 제공하고 있는 주요 패싯인 언어나 발행년도, 주제(대구분)와 같이 효과적인 패싯이 될 수 있다. 이에 한국십진분류법(KDC)을 적용한 서지레코드의 분류기호를 분석하여, 본표와 조기표의 합성 현황과 특징을 도출하였다. 그리고 이를 바탕으로 본표에 합성된 조기성 기호가 패싯 내비게이션 기능 강화에 활용될 수 있음을 제안하였다. 이 방안은 분류기호를 부여하기 위해 기존에 이루어져 왔던 주제 분석 과정의 산물을 재사용할 수 있다는 추가적인 이점도 가지고 있다. The purpose of this study is to improve the faceted navigation function of next-generation library catalogs(NGC) using the tables in a classification scheme. Because the tables provide forms or contents of materials systematically, faceted navigation based on the tables can be as effective as faceted navigation based on language, publishing date, or class-level subject facet. Therefore, class numbers based on the Korean Decimal Classification (KDC) were examined and the characteristics of schedules and tables were analyzed. As a result, suggestions to improve faceted navigation was provided. Moreover, the method using the tables does not need additional resources to derive facets because the facet analysis process is always carried out in the classification process.

Mining Hierarchical Concept Lattice for Faceted Navigation

Faceted navigation is effective in reducing information overload in the process of resource identification,by organizing query result into dynamic multi-dimensional categories.Existing approaches allow users to add or delete only one query