http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WYWGKnVkEw

Moodboards are a great way to collect thoughts, to find and set expectations.

A lot of terms are used for faceted navigation. For example visual search, guided navigation, browse & discovery or faceted browsing. It’s all about finding your own path to information.

It provides users with filtering options to explore a website. Users can select criteria that [...]]]> What is faceted navigation?

A lot of terms are used for faceted navigation. For example visual search, guided navigation, browse & discovery or faceted browsing. It’s all about finding your own path to information.

It provides users with filtering options to explore a website. Users can select criteria that are of interest to them and by this create their own routes to information. Within e-commerce websites users can compare products by specific features, for instance when looking for a TV you can specify to see only TV’s that are 1080p and that are 46 inches. When good implemented there are no dead-ends.

Bottom line it’s user facing navigation with multiple filters within categories.

(Photo from Peter Morville’s A List Apart article).

The combination of website search (with auto-complete) and faceted search is very powerful when there is large quantity of content or there are many possible ways to organize the content. This search and browse (discover) combination is most often used when users don’t know where to search. When fill in a keyword and returning browsing categories in the search results is very effective to guide the user to a single category.

Examples of faceted navigation can be found in a wide range of domains. Most familiar are e-commerce and price compare websites, but also within configuration or visualization solutions, Frequent Asked Questions (FAQ) and index solutions faceted navigation is used.

Below some links to faceted navigation example.

e-Commerce

Price compare

Configurtor

Visualizer

FAQ

Index solution

The search and browse (discover) is used when users don’t know where to search. When fill in a keyword and returning browsing categories in the search results is very effective to guide the user to a single category.