Read more at http://peterme.com/archives/00000063.html --Alex
... faceted classification, one of the most powerful, yet least understood,
methods of organizing information. Most folks, when thinking about
organizing objects or information, immediately think of a hierarchical, or
taxonomic, organization; a top-down structure, where you start with a
number of broad categories that get ever more detailed, until you arrive at
the object. In such structures, each object has a single home, and
typically, one path to get there--this is how things are organized in "the
real world", where each item can only be in one place. Oftentimes, when
thinking of organizing information, a hierarchy is where people begin
(think Yahoo!).
Faceted classification, on the other hand, is a bottom-up scheme. Here,
each object is tagged with a certain set of attributes and values (these
are the facets), and the organization of these objects emerges from this
classification, and how a user chooses to access them. Toys, for example,
lend themselves to a faceted classification, with the facets being things
like, "Suitable Age," "Price," "Subject Type," "Brand," and even
"Character" (like Barbie or Elmo). Someone might be price conscious, and
want to start there; another knows that the child in question loves science
toys, and wants to begin with that. Faceted classification allows for
exploration directed by the user, where a large dataset is progressively
filtered through the user's various choices, until arriving at a manageable
set that meet the users' basic criteria. Instead of sifting through a
pre-determined hierarchy, the items are organized on-the-fly, based on
their inherent qualities.
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