Best Practices in Taxonomy Development for Faceted Search

Effective faceted search depends on well organized taxonomies.  However, in some cases, the organization has not done the upfront classification work needed to fully leverage facets for search and guided navigation.  The approach is “let’s just use what we have and see what happens”.  That approach may  provide some benefit, (if the bar is low enough to begin with) but how can you get the most from investments in tools and technologies and fine tune your taxonomy to produce a better user experience?  In this session we’ll review practices around developing taxonomies as they are specifically applied to faceted search.  We’ll discuss do’s and don’ts and show you how to get more from faceted search and create an intuitive user interface that will improve usability and result in increased conversions.

Our session presenters will cover taxonomy development from two distinct perspectives: the first will address new ways of understanding users “mental models” in order to select the correct facets for the user interface.  The second presentation will delve more deeply into practical considerations around deployment and leveraging facets in faceted search systems. 

Austin Govella will present "Redefining Search Design Using Mental Models"

It’s a basic question: How do you identify the right facets? Content models and technology have matured to where the choice of possible facets is pretty limitless. Though we design search systems to support very human needs, our old methods no longer adequately address the user’s complex environment. Nor, will they ever.

In this 25 minute presentation, we’ll look at common ways to generate metadata models, and then introduce a new way to identify and prioritize what facets a search system should manage, how well, and— just as importantly—what facets should be left to the users to manage outside of the system. An inherent part of identifying this baseline experience is a robust, light-weight process for evaluating the quality of your search experience.

Throughout the presentation, we’ll use examples from real world projects to illustrate these methods in action.

Stephanie Lemieux and Rich Tomlinson will present “Tips and Tricks for Building Intuitive Faceted Search”

Now that faceted search interfaces are so prevalent, patterns are emerging that establish good design. It’s not just a matter of taking any old product data and turning it loose: using a taxonomy for faceted search or guided navigation has specific implications that affect design and implementation choices.  You need to consider user behavior around browsing and searching, depth & breadth, structure of categories, facet display rules, and more. You’ll hear a perspective that harmonizes taxonomy best practices and tool/context-specific considerations and give you practical do’s and don’ts in building a successful faceted search interface.