Samstag, April 29, 2006

An excellent guide for facetted classification (E)

In most daily worflows concerning internet, intranets or extranets people are searching through websites to find products, services or solutions. Findability as an important aspect and the users goal to focus quickly on the right information given by a platform, forces Information Architects to create new smart concepts for their clients. And this also concerns Enterprise IA.
Simple product listings or navigation hierarchies are easily overextended with the hundreds and thousands of different views and needs users are trying to focus on their prefered information.
Therefore it is a strategicly smart step to create platforms which offer these multiple ways for the end user to focus and narrow down on the prefered information.
But what's the right method of doing so? Developing a faceted classification is certainly one solid way. William Denton has published this terrific description called "How to Make a Faceted Classification and Put It On The Web" which describes the most important steps including analysis work, basics thoughts behind the method and finaly the imlementations.
It's worth reading. What are your comments on faceted classification and how important is it for you?