Web Design Practices | Faceted Classification

There are so few sources of data on IA items like facets, so here’s an interesting post…

Unlike a simple hierarchical scheme, faceted classification gives the users the ability to find items based on more than one dimension. For example, some users shopping for jewelry may be most interested in browsing by particular type of jewelry (earrings, necklaces), while others are more interested in browsing by a particular material (gold, silver). ‘Material’ and ‘type’ are examples of facets; earrings, necklaces, gold, silver are examples of facet values.

Frequency of Faceted Classification: 69% of sites made at least some use of faceted classification. In four product categories (Computers, Gifts, Kitchen Ware, Music/Video) all sites within the category used faceted classification. In one product category (Office Supplies) no sites within the category made use of facets.

More interesting facet factoids >>

Hey, for all those budding information architects out there or for those just interested in the subject, check out [Austin Govella's intro to all things IA.->http://www.squidoo.com/ia/] There’s a section on the foundations of IA, introductory books, some good links, email lists, and job listings. I was pleased to see Steve Krug’s book “Don’t Make Me Think” listed there. That’s one of my all-time favs that I sometimes give to clients, it’s an easy quick read.

I predict numerous economic ripples from the annoucement this week of [Apple's video iPod/iTunes->http://www.apple.com/itunes/videos/], but let’s also point out that the user experience for personal video players just took a giant leap forward. And that’s really what’s driving the ball here–the user experience.

It’s not because Apple’s hardware is that innovative. Apple’s iPod has been around for a while and playing videos on any personal video player (PVP) device is just not that big of a stretch technology wise. But, what really has changed is the user experience for a PVP. Now it’s actually easy to buy a video, load it, and play it via iTunes and the new iPods. Here’s what [CNET->http://news.com.com/Commentary+Apples+video+jump-start/2030-1041_3-5895461.html?part=rss&tag=5895461&subj=news] said this week…

While Apple is not the first company offering a portable video player or a legal download service–Microsoft got there first with partners CinemaNow, TiVo, Creative, Samsung and Zvue–Apple does it better. Together with its new iTunes video-capable software, Apple created a simple, end-to-end experience for video purchase, download and portable viewing.

And that last point is key. Apple was the first to see that the user experience with all these other devices including the Sony Playstation Portable, which really has one of the most beautiful small screens anywhere, should have been out there first. But they aren’t. And like I mentioned in a [previous post->http://www.rnalabs.com/archives/18], you have to bridge that gap between your hardware and software with an easy user experience. It’s shouldn’t be stupid difficult. Keep it simple, make it easy. It’s easy to make it hard, and hard to make it easy.

Personal video player (PVP) hardware developers just don’t get it yet. The user experience doesn’t stop at the device, it extends to the desktop.

Take Sony as as example. While the PSP was designed as a gaming platform it seems to be used a lot with video playback from the memory sticks. "The Street finds its own use for things." My expectation is that transfering a video to a PVP device should be as easy as an putting a song on my iPod using iTunes. But not so. There’s no cross plaform iTunes like interface from Sony for managing video content on the PSP. Sony really missed the boat with this aspect of their device. Users have to resort to third-party utilities that manage the alphabet soup of video CODECs, formats, and sizes. If you thought music file formats were difficult, with all the different bit rates and mp3’s vs. AAC’s vs. ogg’s, video is a true nightmare compared to digital music. One look at my compression software and there’s a litany of choices; Quicktime, Real, or Windows Media wrappers, compression in MPEG-1,2,4, Motion JPEG, Sorenson, H.261, H.263, H.264, DV, etc. In addition, there are various frame rates and audio compression choices of various flavors. Wow, what a user experience nightmare. Which really means there’s a huge opportunity for any company that get videos working as easy as the iTunes/iPod, hardware/software marriage. If you’ve seen other PVP’s out there that you think have nailed it, leave a comment, let me know.