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Faceted navigation - a dynamic combination of search and browse - was a hot topic at last month's Enterprise Search Summit in New York. Several speakers praised online retailer Wine.com's effective use of the technique, noting that, at present, the growth in faceted navigation is to be found in e-commerce environments. But there are some fascinating possibilities for corporate applications, too.
Unlike taxonomies, which are built around parent-child relationships, "facets" are a way of classifying and linking a variety of multi-dimensional units and structures, so that (to continue the wine example) the user can progressively narrow down and browse results against variables such as vintage, price, grape variety, vineyard location, and taste rating, with the list of matching results changing each time an additional facet is selected.
Critically, facets are presented to the user at the moment the search is performed, and only valid facets of the data set being interrogated are shown. Faceted navigation is, therefore, radically different from a pre-determined Yahoo-style directory structure, which can ...
Source: HighBeam Research, Market Watch - Take a faceted view.(faceted navigation )