Designing for Faceted Search
http://www.uie.com/articles/faceted_search

Faceted search, or guided navigation, has become the de facto standard for e-commerce and product-related websites, from big box stores to product review sites. But e-commerce sites aren’t the only ones joining the facets club. Other content-heavy sites such as media publishers (e.g. Financial Times: ft.com), libraries (e.g. NCSU Libraries: lib.ncsu.edu/), and even non-profits (e.g. Urban Land Institute: uli.org) are tapping into faceted search to make their often broad-range of content more findable. Essentially, faceted search has become so ubiquitous that users are not only getting used to it, they are coming to expect it.

In this column, I’ve presented five best practices for designing filters for faceted search results. Of these, I think the first—choosing either drill-down or parallel selection—is the most important. If you choose your filter value-selection paradigm correctly, you are already half way there.

Five best practices for designing filters for faceted search results. Of these, I think the first—choosing either drill-down or parallel selection—is the most important.

Recently, Office Depot redesigned their search user interface, adding attribute-based filtering and creating a more dynamic, interactive user experience. Unfortunately, Office Depot’s interaction design misses some key points, making their new search user interface less usable and, therefore, less effective. That’s the bad news. The good news is that the Office Depot site presents us with an excellent case study for demonstrating some of the important best practices for designing filters for faceted search results, as follows:

Recently, Office Depot redesigned their search user interface, adding attribute-based filtering and creating a more dynamic, interactive user experience. Unfortunately, Office Depot’s interaction design misses some key points, making their new search user interface less usable and, therefore, less effective. That’s the bad news. The good news is that the Office Depot site presents us with an excellent case study for demonstrating some of the important best practices for designing filters for faceted search results, as follows: 1. Decide on your filter value-selection paradigm—either drill-down or parallel selection. 2. Provide an obvious and consistent way to undo filter selection. 3. Always make all filters easily available. 4. At every step in the search workflow, display only filter values that correspond to the available items, or inventory. 5. Provide filter values that encompass all items, or the complete inventory. By following the attribute-based filtering desi