The Use of Faceted AnalyticoSynthetic Theory as Revealed in the Practice of Website Construction and

1
The Use of Faceted Analytico-Synthetic Theory as
Revealed in the Practice of Website Construction
and Design

• Kathryn La Barre
• Dissertation Proposal Defense 2-23-05
• School of Library and Information Science
• Indiana University, Bloomington

2
Peeling the onion

• In Calvin Mooers words,
• Facet provides an analytical tool that is, the
  idea of facet allows you to peel the onion of an
  idea.

• Brian Vickery. (1965). Faceted Classification
  Schemes. In Susan Artandi (Ed.) Rutgers Series on
  Systems for the Intellectual Organization of
  Information. V. 5. New Brunswick, NJ Graduate
  School of Library Science at Rutgers University

3
Outline

• Brief overview of development of FAST
• Basic definitions
• Brief introduction to proposed research
• Overview
• Questions/Limitations
• Literature Review and current work
• Discussion of proposed research
• Questions
• Methods

4
From Practice (1925-1932)

• During the years 1925 to 1932, there was no
  theory to guide the design to recognize the
  components and facets. It was all trial and
  error.
• Ranganathan. (1989). Colon Classification. 7th
  ed. revised and edited by M.A. Gopinath.
  Bangalore DRTC. p. 3-9

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To a Dynamic Theory of Classification(1947-1961)

• Readers were observed, their reactions were
  noted and discussions held with them. Thus
  suggestions were slowly collected for improving
  the design.
• Two International Study conferences were held,
  one at Dorking (1957), the other at Elsinore
  (1964). This provided opportunity to discuss the
  subject with a colleagues This gave further
  stimulus to the development of the dynamic theory
  of classification.
• It is only, after gaining some experience with
  trial and error method, that Guiding Principles
  are usually evolved. As the saying goes
• Poetry first, Prosody afterwards.

6
Based on an explicitly stated hierarchy of
normative principles (1962-1986)

• Consisting of
• Canons
• Postulates
• Principles
• Ranganathan, S.R.
• (1967). Prolegomena to Library Classification
  3rd ed.
• see esp. Part R
• and
• (1962). Elements of library classification.
  3rd ed.

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Faceted analytico-synthetic theory

• Most inclusive terminology
• / indicates the existence of guiding principles
• / incorporates
• Facet Analysis technique
• entity analyzed into facets (characteristics-thing
  s, concepts-ideas)
• Faceted Classification structure
• Consists of schedules for basic classes with
  pre-determined facets for all entities.
• Analytico-Synthetic Classification
• Five step process from facet analysis to
  notation.

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Research overview

• Exploratory study
• Information organization and access
• Faceted approaches
• Traditional - LIS
• Websites KM/ IA
• Methods
• Content analysis of websites
• Semi-structured interviews

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Research questions

• (1) What types of access and organizational
  structures are used in websites?
• (2) What is the evidence that there is use of
  faceted analytico-synthetic theory in website
  construction and design of website search tools?
• (3) In what ways do the products of those Web
  designers who make explicit claims to utilize or
  be informed by faceted analytico-synthetic theory
  conform to or depart from the theory as described
  in LIS literature?

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Research limitations

• Focus on website
• organization and access systems
• No capture or analysis of metadata
• No analysis of controlled vocabularies (presence
  will be noted).

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Outline

• Brief overview
• development of FAST
• basic definitions
• Brief introduction to proposed research
• overview
• questions/limitations
• Literature Review and current work
• Discussion of proposed research
• Questions
• Methods

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Distribution of FAST publications/topic themes
1950-present
2000-present IR applications Faceted search,
browse and retrieval, Web design for IA and KM
1990-99 Metadata, Database theory, Image
archives, AAT, Web applications Software reuse
repositories
1980-89 Revision CC/BC2, Criticism, Automation,

1969-79 Thesauri/Indexing systems-Thesaurofacet N
ASA/ UNESCO Extension BC2/ CC, BSO, PRECIS,
POPSI
1950-68 Library and Documentation
applications-early IR work
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Summary Traditional FAST
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FAST in Cyberspace 2000-present

• September 2001 - Peter Merholz
• Innovation in classification
• January 2002 - Travis Wilson FacetMap
• March 2002 Phil Murray KMConnection
• April 2002 - Discussion on SIG/IA list
• May 2002 Peter Van Dijck XFML
• July 2002 Rosenfeld and Morville Information
  Architecture for the World Wide Web. 2nd Ed.
• December 2002 Van Dijck/ Murray establish
• Faceted Classification discussion list

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FAST in Cyberspace

• Epicurious http//www.epicurious.com
• Wine.com http//www.wine.com
• Siderean software http//www.siderean.com/
• Endeca software http//endeca.com/
• Adiuri systems http//www.adiuri.com/

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White Wines winery A C D H I K L M N
S T Z price 25 and Below 25 - 50 50 -
75 75 and Above


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Review of similar studies

• Website flow (Hoffman Novak, 1996)
• Website feature analysis (Fogg, 2002)
• E-commerce sites (Ho, 1997)
• E-commerce and FC (Adkisson, 2003)

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Outline

• Brief overview
• development of FAST
• basic definitions
• Brief introduction to proposed research
• overview
• questions/limitations
• Literature Review and current work
• Discussion of proposed research
• Questions
• Methods

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Proposed research process Phase I

• STEP I Framework and criteria for sampling and
  analysis of websites.
• Prepare coding manual (pilot).
  
• STEP 2 Content analysis (preliminary) of
  websites in sample for components// creation of
  wireframes
• STEP 3 Analyze sites for FAST.
• Determine site grouping by type of sites
  identified as using FAST. Content analysis
  (secondary) of sample for evidence of FAST.

• (Q1) What types of access and organizational
  structures are used in websites?
• (Q2) What is the evidence that there is use of
  FAST in website construction and design of
  website construction tools

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Proposed research processPhase II

• (Q2) What is the evidence that there is use of
  FAST in website construction and design of
  website search tools?
• (Q3) In what ways do the products of those Web
  designers who make explicit claims to utilize or
  be informed by faceted analytico-synthetic theory
  conform to or depart from the theory as described
  in LIS literature?

• Prepare interview instrument/ prompts
• (informed by Phase I Step 3 secondary
  analysis of websites)
• Identify designers
• Conduct semi-structured interviews

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Phase I Research question 1

• (Q1) What types of access and organizational
  structures are used in websites?
• STEP 1
• Sampling issues
• Web
• website
• Framework for analysis
• Coding manual preliminary site analysis

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Web Sampling issues

• Krippendorf (1980). A sampling plan must assure
  that within the constraints imposed by available
  knowledge about the phenomena, each unit has the
  same chance of being represented in the
  collection of sampling units
• Size of the Web
• Variable persistence
• Fluid content

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Sampling approaches

• Randomly drawn pages search engines and
  directories. (Bates Lu, 1997 Bucy et al.,
  1999 Ha James, 1998 Haas Grams, 2000
  Koehler, 1999).
• Method for representative random sampling of the
  web. O'Neill, McClain, and Lavoie (1997).

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Proposed website sampling framework (two-part)

• Typology Alexander, J. Tate, M. (1999). Web
  wisdom How to evaluate and create information
  quality on the Web. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
  New York. )Alexander and Tate typology
  http//www2.widener.edu/Wolfgram-Memorial-Library/
  webevaluation/webeval.htm
• Advocacy Web Page sponsored by an organization
  attempting to influence public opinion (that is,
  one trying to sell ideas). URL frequently ends in
  .org (organization)
• Business/Marketing Web Page sponsored by a
  commercial enterprise (usually it is a page
  trying to promote or sell products). URL
  frequently ends in .com (commercial).
• News Web Page primary purpose is to provide
  extremely current information. URL usually ends
  in .com (commercial).
• Informational Web Page purpose is to present
  factual information. URL frequently ends in .edu
  or .gov Examples Dictionaries, thesauri,
  directories, transportation schedules, calendars
  of events, statistical data, and other factual
  information such as reports, presentations of
  research, or information about a topic.
• Personal Web Page published by an individual who
  may or may not be affiliated with a larger
  institution. URL may have a variety of endings
  (e.g. .com, .edu, etc.), a tilde () is
  frequently embedded somewhere in the URL

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Proposed sampling framework

• DMOZ -categories

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Website analytical framework

• (Budd, 1967).
• Coding unit smallest segment of content being
  counted and scored
• Context units body of material surrounding the
  coding unit
• (McMillan, 2000).
• Subdividing sampling units into smaller
  recording units eases coding, reliability,
  analytic flexibility.

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Website considerations

• (McMillan, 2000).
• Most common context unit is the website, or home
  page. Wide variance in coding units.
• (Ha, 2000).
• Home page as ideal unit of analysis as it
  determines whether or not site visitors will
  staysearchbrowse
• (Weare and Lin, 2000).
• Focus on single Web page as defined by URL
  first page presented when entering a website.
  Most appropriate for research focusing on
  structural aspects of the WWW
• (O'Neill, McClain, and Lavoie, 1997)
• Web page a machine-readable file which can be
  displayed within a Web browser without requiring
  additional software. This includes HTML
  (Hypertext Markup Language) files and pure text
  files.
• A Web site is the collection of all Web pages
  located at the same top-level or base URL
  (Uniform Resource Locator).

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Phase I Research question 1

• (Q1) What types of access and organizational
  structures are used in websites?
• STEP 2
• (Preliminary) Content analysis
• Coding categories
• Wireframe creation

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Content analysis issues

• Coding units (McMillan, 2000)
• Can be expected to vary depending on the
  theory upon which the study is based, the
  research questions explored, and the hypotheses
  tested. No standard seems to have emerged for the
  Web.
• Common coding unit structural features of a
  website.

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W3C DOM nodes website components
lt!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC -//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0
Transitional//ENgt lthtmlgt ltheadgt lttitle
DHTML amp CSS for the WWW Understanding DOM
lt/titlegt lt/headgt ltbodygt ltform action method
getgt ltinput typetext size24
/gt lt/formgt ltdivgt ltimg srcalice28a.gif
idalice1 /gt your message
here lt/divgt lt/bodygt lt/htmlgt
Teague (2004), p.209
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Document Object Model

• The Document Object Model (DOM) is an application
  programming interface (API) for valid HTML and
  well-formed XML documents.
• It defines the logical structure of documents and
  the way a document is accessed and manipulated.
• The DOM presents documents as a hierarchy of Node
  objects that also implement other, more
  specialized interfaces.
• With the DOM, programmers and designers can build
  documents, navigate their structure, and add,
  modify, or delete content.
• As a W3C specification, one important objective
  for the DOM is to provide a standard programming
  interface that can be used in a wide variety of
  environments and applications. The DOM is
  designed to be used with any programming
  language.

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Page components (recording units)

• Rosenfeld and Morville (2002)IA Component
  categories
• Browsing aids-
• Organization systems
• Site-wide navigation/ Local Navigation
• Sitemaps/ Table of contents
• Site indexes/ guides/ wizards
• Contextual linking systems
• Search aids
• Search interface
• Query language
• Retrieval algorithms
• Search zones
• Search results

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RM component categories - continued

• Content and tasks
• Headings
• Embedded links/Metadata
• Content chunks
• Lists
• Sequential aids
• Invisible components
• Controlled vocabularies
• Thesauri
• Rule sets

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Components of interest

• Site map
• Website navigation
• Ordering principles
• Search features
• Advanced search
• Results display

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Wireframe process


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Wireframe/ epicurious.com

• Logo
• recipesfeaturescookingdrinkingrestaurantsdrin
  kingshop
• recipe box/recipe collections/slidshows/forums/f
  ind a recipe
• BROWSE advanced search
• ____________ browse all recipes
• Main ingredient Preparation method
• Cuisine Season/ Occasion
• Special considerations Course/ Meal
• Dish
• Helpsite mapcontactmastheadmagadslog in
  signup edit log out

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Phase I Research question 2

• (Q2) What is the evidence that there is use of
  FAST in website construction and design of
  website construction tools?
• STEP 3
• Framework for site analysis / FAST.
• Coding manual secondary analysis draws upon
  Step 1 and 2.
• FAST identified - Site groupings by type.

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Phase II Research question 2

• (Q2) What is the evidence that there is use of
  FAST in website construction and design of
  website search tools?
• Process informed by Phase I Step 3
• Prepare interview instrument
• Prepare wireframe prompts (generic)

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Phase II Research question 3

• (Q3) In what ways do the products of those Web
  designers who make explicit claims to utilize or
  be informed by faceted analytico-synthetic theory
  conform to or depart from the theory as described
  in LIS literature?
• Process
• Identify designers
• Prepare wireframe prompts (specific)
• Conduct semi-structured interviews

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Interview Instruments

• Semi-structured interview
• Pre-test of instruments
• Questions
• Prompts

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Conclusion

• Potential contributions
• Descriptive contribution to the literature about
  the types of access and search structures
  currently used on websites.
• May provide new understanding of the ways in
  which faceting is or is not used on websites in
  the design and construction of website access and
  organizational structures.
• Study provides a novel way to address issues
  about the relation of theory and practice in the
  context of a particular domain.

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Questions
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Choices

• Combined findings (phase 1 and 2) may
• indicate ways in which org/access structures may
  be improved/strengthened by consistent
  application of theory
• Uncover novel areas of practice augment/ improve
  dynamic theory
• First step other paths possible
• Potential for adoption?
• Guidelines to enhance practice
• Theoretical extensions
• Design process (longitudinal)
• Usability

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People of interest

• IA Summit Lists Blogs
• Heidi Adkisson Web Design Practices
• Karl Fast, PhD student in library and information
  science at the University of Western Ontario.
• Louis Gruenberg Answers Research Communication
  Services (ARCS)
• Fred Leise President of ContextualAnalysis, LLC,
  is an information architecture consultant
• Yves Marleau Vice-President, Knowledge Management
  
• Peter Merholz, Adaptive Path
• Peter Morville Semantic Studios
• Steve Mulder, Senior consultant in User
  Experience / Molecular
• Phil Murray KMConnection
• Louis Rosenfeld /co-founder Argus
• Amy Warner Lexonomy.com consulting firm
• Travis Wilson FacetMap

• Academic/practitioners
• David Batty (here and there)
• Vanda Broughton (UC London UDC)
• Claudio Gnoli/ Luciana Rossetti (U. Pavia)
• Marti Hearst Flamenco UC Berkeley
• Jack Mills (CRG/ BCA)
• Steve Pollitt HighBrowse for Embase
• Aida Slavic (UC London)
• Doug Tudhope (U. Glamorgan)
• Brian Vickery (there and back again)

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Interview material

• Background knowledge, books, resources used in
  practice
• Visual prompts (generic pages)
• Visual prompts (specific pages)
• Design and construction process
• System constraints
• Awareness of theory? Use in practice?

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Guiding Principles

• Postulates
• Five fundamental categories PMEST
• Three planes of work Idea Verbal Notational
• Canons
• Parsimony
• Symmetry
• 5 laws of LS (Books are for use) (Books are for
  all) (Every book its reader) (Save the time of
  the reader) (A library is a growing organism).
• Others
• Consistent sequence
• Currency
• Enumeration
• Context
• Reticence
• Relativity
• Mnemonics
• Viewpoint
• Classics
• Distinctiveness

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Comparison AT/DMOZ

• Alexander and Tate
• (1) Advocacy influence public opinion
• (2) Business/Marketing promote or sell products
• (3) News- provide extremely current information
• (4) Informational- present factual information
• (5) Personal-published by an individual

• DMOZ category
• (1) Society
• (2) Adult, Business, Computers,
  Recreational,Shopping
• (3) News
• (4) Arts,Games,Health,Kids and Teens, Reference,
  Regional, Science
• (5) May be scattered throughout the categories,
  though editorial guidelines may preclude
  inclusion of personal homepages in some
  categories.

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Typologies By Domain By Type

• By domain
• Rough guide .gov/ .com /.org/ .net
• By type
• Esrock and Leichty (2000) Corporate site
  typology
• Business to business
• Shopping
• Single Product
• Search engine marketing (2004)
• Content Site CNN and CNET
• Forum
• Blog
• Directory Site
• Brochure or Organization Site
  
• Business site (promotion)
• Commerce (selling)
• Download site
• Information site
• Shock site
• Game site

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Typologies By Content By Function

• By Content / components
• Ha and James (1998)
• Navigation aids
• Search engines
• Site maps
• Rosenfeld and Morville (2002)
• Organization
• Labeling systems
• Navigation systems
• Search systems
• Hwang, McMillan and Lee (2003). Corporate sites
• Graphics
• Text
• Multimedia
• By Function
• Hwang, McMillan and Lee (2001). Corporate sites
• Communication
• About company About brand About sales
• Audience Special interest/news/ads
  RecruitmentSurvey

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Typologies For evaluation Link
structure

• For evaluative purposes
• Argus (1997)
• Level of Resource Description objective
• Level of Resource Evaluation subjective
• Design (aesthetics/usability)
• Organization (scheme)
• Metainformation
• Alexander and Tate(1999)
• Advocacy
• Business/Marketing
• News
• Informational
• Personal
• Link structure
• Jackson (1997)
• Connectedness (hypertext, satellite)
• Dominance (index, linear)
• Brin and Page (1998) PageRank (Google)
• Haas, S.W., Grams, E.S. (1998).

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Peter Van Dijcks Guide to Ease (blog) Comments
on the Bliss Classification Association
Bibliographic Classification Guide. 10
October, 2002. http//www.poorbuthappy.com/ease/ar
chives/001603.html

• The standard categories recognized in
  classical facet analysis are Thing kind
  part property material process operation
  patient product by product agent space
  time. ltBCA websitegt
• Why do these people try to specify what facets
  are useful? Surely if I want to classify my
  content using a facet called How impressed I was
  with this content when I first saw it then that
  is a perfectly valid facet? This underlying
  assumption that there are generic or correct
  ways of categorizing the world is just, well,
  wrong. The world doesnt have an inherent
  classification that we just have to discover. All
  classification gets its meaning from the people
  using it, not from the objects being classified.

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Travis Wilson (creator of FacetMap) Thread
Special vs. General Schemes Date Wed, 12 Mar
2003 091411 0000 http//article.gmane.org/gmane
.comp.infodesign.facetedclassification/170/matchf
acet

• At the other extreme, the universal qualities
  espoused by Ranganathan and others just don't
  apply to many resources that deserve
  classification. The "space" facet only works in
  the context of resources that have physical
  incarnations in a spatial location perhaps this
  is obvious, but it confirms that there is indeed
  a context -- one that many data-based resources
  don't share.
• In the end, the whole idea of a set of general
  facets as a "framework for facets typical of each
  discipline" simply limits the number of
  disciplines that can use FC (to those that fit
  within the framework). Ranganathan was really not
  concerned with disciplines outside of biology. I
  don't think that kind of limitation is
  appropriate for faceted classification in
  general, and I hope we don't impose it.

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Example Literature Hierarchical/ Faceted

• English
• Prose
• Poetry
• sonnet
• ballad
• French
• Prose
• Poetry
• sonnet
• ballad
• German
• Prose
• Poetry
• sonnet
• ballad

• Language
• EN
• FR
• GR
• Form
• Prose
• Poetry
• sonnet
• ballad

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Illustration of faceted and hierarchical website
structures

• Rosenfeld, L. Morville, P. (2002). Information
  architecture for the World Wide Web. Cambridge,
  MA OReill. P. 205.

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Definition

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Facet

• Facet
• A generic term used to denote any component of a
  compound subject, ltincludinggt ranked forms, terms
  and numbers (Ranganathan, 1967, p. 88).
• A general manifestation of a subject
  (Ranganathan, 1962, p. 82).
• Groups of terms derived by taking each term and
  defining it, per genus et differentiam, with
  respect for its parent class (Vickery, 1960, p.
  12).
• Facet analytical approach Proper and rigorous
  practice of facet analysis by observing the rules
  of logical division. (Broughton, 2001, p. 67
  Mills, 2004, p. 268).
• one characteristic of division is applied at a
  time conceptual analysis
• division steps should be logical and proximate
• division should be exhaustive (Mills, 2004, pp.
  551).

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Planes of work

• Idea The work of FA takes place in the Idea
  plane, where an entity is analyzed into component
  parts
• Verbal FA continues here as further sorting and
  transformation of the selected categories/facets
  or terms occur.
• Notational work of FC -- translating selected
  terms into notation.

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Facets continued

• Supports the notion that information can be
  assigned to multiple dimensions and may have
  individual attributes not intrinsic to the
  information.
• Small components of larger entities/units.
• Properties
• Attributes
• Characteristics
• Slots
• Relations
• Functions
• Concepts

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High level categories
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Classification

• The placing of subjects into categories
• The process of determining where an information
  package fits into a given hierarchy and then
  assigning the notation with the appropriate level
  of hierarchy to the information and to its
  surrogate.
• Taylor, A. (1999). The organization of
  information. Englewood, CO Libraries Unlimited.

63
Classification- assigning objects to classes

• Objects to be classified into a system are called
  elements, cases, units, exemplars, specimens or
  items. They are the sources or carriers' of
  properties, characteristics or variables.
• A property can only be useful in a
  classification, if it varies within the set of
  objects, that is, if at least two different
  values (categories, states, labels) on the
  respective property occur in the sample.
• When more than one property is used to
  characterize an object, the object can be
  described as a vector of values, a profile, a set
  of symptoms, or a pattern of features. The
  crucial assumption underlying classification is
  that objects are elements of a class, of a set,
  of a partition or-in biology-of a taxon. In other
  terminologies, the terms category' or cluster'
  are also used.
• Classification is the process of finding classes
  and of assigning entities to these classes. The
  end product of this order-creating process,
  however, is often also referred to as
  classification.' To stress this distinction, the
  term classification system' can be used for the
  end-product, although in clinical psychology and
  biology the word taxonomy' is more common.
  Identification is the assignment of a specific
  case or object to (usually only) one of the
  classes.
• H. Feger (2001). Classification Conceptions in
  the Social Sciences. International Encyclopedia
  of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, pp.
  1966-1973.