Faceted browsing is the process of navigation through a database or document collection by successively applying filters. Each filter refines the set of documents returned by the previous filter until the desired document is found.
Faceted browsing is a powerful tool for text analytics because it can help users to quickly find the information they are looking for in large document collections. It is also useful for disambiguating terms that have multiple meanings. For example, the term “bank” could refer to a financial institution or a river bank. By applying different filters, the user can easily find the documents that are relevant to their search.
Different facets examples :
- Dates, year, month, day, etc.
- Locations, country, state, city, etc.
- People, name, age, gender, etc.
- Categories, type, color, etc.
Faceted browsing is a powerful tool for text analytics because it can help users to quickly find the information they are looking for in large document collections. It is also useful for disambiguating terms that have multiple meanings. For example, the term “bank” could refer to a
Faceted Browsing vs Filtered Browsing
While faceted browsing and filtered browsing are similar, there are some important distinctions between the two. Filtered browsing generally refers to the process of applying a single filter to a document collection. This can be done using a variety of methods, including Boolean search operators, keyword search, and phrase search.
Faceted browsing, on the other hand, involves the application of multiple filters to a document collection. Each filter refines the set of documents returned by the previous filter until the desired document is found.
Softwares Used for Faceted Browsing
There are a few software that uses faceted browsing. One example is the open-source software called “Yahoo! Pipes”. Yahoo! Pipes allows users to create custom data pipelines by connecting various data sources and applying filters to the data. Another example is the commercial software “FacetMap”, which is designed for visualizing and exploring large document collections.