Re: Intro, and am I in the right room?

Mike,

I'm right with you there. Browsing facets is just as important classifying 
them; there are so many information specialists who have classified their 
resources every possible way, only to realize that users aren't familiar 
with browsing such a multidimensional space. I believe that a lot of 
different interfaces are going to emerge as soon as facets are more 
familiar to the world.

I'm excited by your slider interface. My main question about it is: what 
are the sliders' initial positions? Usually sliders have to be "somewhere" 
at all times -- that is, I've never seen a slider setting that represents 
"All possible values". And typically that's where most users are accustomed 
to starting -- at the top -- so they can then "drill down". Otherwise you 
have to start with your facet headings already drilled down to some 
arbitrary selection, which is disorienting to many users.

Of course, you could have a more complex slider with a "minimum" slider and 
a "maximum" slider on the same axis. That would allow it to start at "All 
possible values" and let the user narrow it to a range of his choice. You 
may be envisioning something like this, but it's not clear to me.

FacetMap, a faceted browsing tool familiar to many on this list, is on the 
verge of releasing a version that technically enables exactly what you're 
talking about. We are defining numerical facets like yours as "range" or 
"spectrum" facets, and working them into our existing interface. I'll post 
again when it's ready, but you can see the present interface (which browses 
taxonomic facets) now at <http://facetmap.com/browse.jsp>.

Travis Wilson
Development
http://facetmap.com

At 03:34 PM 3/3/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>Hi all -
>
>My name is Michael Boyink, and I'm an independent consultant from West
>Michigan..  I've been subscribed to the group for some time now - having
>originally subscribed to learn more about the list topic as it pertained
>to website navigation as it seemed to be a more powerful way to present
>complex content.
>
>I'm now bumping into a project that feels related in a different way,
>and I need to see if I'm "in the right room".
>
>Let me see if I can stay on the lawyer-friendly side of the NDA I
>signed, and give you enough information to provide any insight.  I have
>a client that manufactures a complex, highly configurable product.
>Their product comprises several product lines.  These product lines all
>share traits, but have differing amounts of those traits.  They want to
>provide a tool to browse typical configurations of their products based
>on the users selecting which amounts of each trait they are interested
>in.
>
>For example, if this client was an auto manufacturer, picture a tool
>where you could go and see a picture of a car.  Under that car is a
>"graphic equalizer" arrangement of sliders, labeled "Horsepower",
>"Towing Capacity", "Passenger Space", "Price", "Utility" etc.  As you
>choose a slider and adjust it, the picture of the car would change to a
>different model from that manufacturer.  If you slid "Towing Capacity"
>high, and "Passenger Space" low, the interface might present you a truck
>rather than a car, etc.
>
>This almost feels like "multifaceted browsing" rather than "multifaceted
>classification", but my gut feeling is that they are related at the root
>level, and possibly just a different interface running on the same
>dataset.
>
>So first of all, am I in the right room here?  Has anyone seen or built
>such an interface?  Would some of the tools discussed on this list be a
>good starting point for developing this sort of thing?
>
>TIA,
>
>Mike Boyink
>Holland, MI
>  <http://www.boyink.com/> http://www.boyink.com


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