{{short description|Method of information retrieval}} thumb | right | Navigation search for an element '''Faceted search''' augments lexical search with a '''faceted navigation''' system, allowing users to narrow results by applying filters based on a faceted classification of the items.<ref name="Faceted Search" /> It is a parametric search technique.<ref>{{cite web |title=Parametric Search, Faceted Search, and Taxonomies - New Idea Engineering |url=http://www.ideaeng.com/parametric-facet-taxonomy-0206 |website=www.ideaeng.com |access-date=22 July 2022 |language=en}}</ref> A faceted classification system classifies each information element along multiple explicit dimensions, facets, enabling the classifications to be accessed and ordered in multiple ways rather than in a single, predetermined, taxonomic order.<ref name="Faceted Search"> {{cite journal | last = Tunkelang | first = Daniel | date = 2009 | title = Faceted Search | journal = Synthesis Lectures on Information Concepts, Retrieval, and Services | volume = 1 | pages = 1–80 | publisher = Morgan & Claypool | doi = 10.2200/S00190ED1V01Y200904ICR005 | s2cid = 2430723 | doi-access = free }} </ref>

Facets correspond to properties of the information elements. They are often derived by analysis of the text of an item using entity extraction techniques or from pre-existing fields in a database such as author, descriptor, language, and format. Thus, existing web-pages, product descriptions or online collections of articles can be augmented with navigational facets.

Faceted search interfaces were first developed in the academic world by Ben Shneiderman, Steven Pollitt, Marti Hearst, and Gary Marchionini in the 1990s and 2000s.<ref name = "Dynamic Previews"> {{cite journal | doi = 10.1109/52.329404 | last = Shneiderman | first = Ben | year = 1994 | title = Dynamic queries for visual information seeking | journal = IEEE Software | volume = 11 | issue = 6 | pages = 70–77 | s2cid = 8021243 | hdl = 1903/388 | hdl-access = free }} </ref><ref name = "View-Based Search"> {{cite journal | last1 = Pollitt | first1 = Steven | last2 = Smith | first2 = Martin | last3 = Treglown | first3 = Mark | last4 = Braekevelt | first4 = Patrick | year = 1996 | title = View-based searching systems—progress towards effective disintermediation | journal = Online Information 96 Proceedings | pages = 433–441 }} </ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Yee |first1=Ka-Ping |last2=Swearingen |first2=Kirsten |last3=Li |first3=Kevin |last4=Hearst |first4=Marti |title=Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems |chapter=Faceted metadata for image search and browsing |date=2003-04-05 |chapter-url=https://doi.org/10.1145/642611.642681 |series=CHI '03 |location=New York, NY, USA |publisher=Association for Computing Machinery |pages=401–408 |doi=10.1145/642611.642681 |isbn=978-1-58113-630-2|s2cid=367518 }}</ref><ref name="Relation Browser"> {{Cite book | vauthors = Marchionini G, Brunk B, ((Interaction Design Laboratory, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)) | url = http://worldcat.org/oclc/751844113 | title = Towards a General Relation Browser: A GUI for Information Architects | date = 2003-01-03 | publisher = Texas Digital Library | oclc = 751844113 }}</ref> The most well-known of these efforts was the Flamenco research project at University of California, Berkeley, which was led by Marti Hearst.<ref>[https://flamenco.berkeley.edu] Flamenco project</ref> Concurrently, there was development of commercial faceted search systems, notably Endeca and Spotfire.

Within the academic community, faceted search has attracted interest primarily among library and information science researchers, and to some extent among computer science researchers specializing in information retrieval.<ref name="sigir06">{{cite web |url=http://facetedsearch.googlepages.com/ |title=SIGIR'2006 Workshop on Faceted Search - Call for Participation |publisher=Facetedsearch.googlepages.com |date=2006-08-10 |access-date=2019-03-19 |archive-date=2009-09-19 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090919065437/http://facetedsearch.googlepages.com/ |url-status=dead }}</ref>

==Mass market use==

Faceted search has become a popular technique in commercial search applications, particularly for online retailers and libraries. An increasing number of enterprise search vendors provide software for implementing faceted search applications.

Online retail catalogs pioneered the earliest applications of faceted search, reflecting both the faceted nature of product data (most products have a type, brand, price, etc.) and the ready availability of the data in retailers' existing information-systems. In the early 2000s, retailers started using faceted search, in part due to published studies that evaluated user search experience on popular sites.<ref>{{Cite web |author=Nielsen Norman Group |author-link=Nielsen Norman Group |title=The State of Ecommerce Search |url=https://www.nngroup.com/articles/state-ecommerce-search/ |access-date=2021-12-13 |website=Nielsen Norman Group |language=en |quote=In our first study on ease of search experience for users, we concluded that '27% of task failures were a result of not being able to locate a suitable item on the site, even though all of our tasks were designed so there was always at least one item available.'}}</ref> Faceted search improves navigation and conversion by helping users find relevant products more quickly.<ref name="Faceted Search" />

{{Asof|2014}}, 40% of the 50 largest US-based online retailers had implemented faceted search.<ref name="Smashing Magazine: The Current State of E-Commerce Search (2014)">[http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2014/08/18/the-current-state-of-e-commerce-search/ Smashing Magazine: The Current State of E-Commerce Search] Retrieved on 2014-08-27.</ref> Examples include the filtering options that appear in the left column on amazon.com or Google Shopping after a keyword search has been performed.

==Libraries and information science==

In 1933, the noted librarian Ranganathan proposed a faceted classification system for library materials, known as colon classification. In the pre-computer era, he did not succeed in replacing the pre-coordinated Dewey Decimal Classification system.<ref name="Major classification systems : the Dewey Centennial">{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/majorclassificat00alle |title=Major classification systems : the Dewey Centennial |date=2007-08-01 |publisher=Forest Press |isbn=978-0-87845-044-2 |access-date=2019-03-19}}</ref>

Modern online library catalogs, also known as online public access catalogs (OPAC), have increasingly adopted faceted search interfaces. Noted examples include the North Carolina State University library catalog (part of the Triangle Research Libraries Network) and the OCLC Open WorldCat system. The CiteSeerX project<ref>[http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/ CiteSeerX]. Citeseerx.ist.psu.edu. Retrieved on 2013-07-21.</ref> at the Pennsylvania State University allows faceted search for academic documents and continues to expand into other facets such as table search.

==See also== * Enterprise search * Exploratory search * Faceted classification * Human–computer information retrieval * Information extraction * NoSQL * Controlled vocabulary * Thesaurus (information retrieval)

==References== <References/>

{{DEFAULTSORT:Faceted Search}} Category:Information retrieval techniques Category:Information retrieval genres