Visual Abstraction and Ordering in Faceted Browsing of Text Collections

Abstract

While faceted navigation interfaces can assist users in exploring an information collection, there is yet little support for users in choosing a relevant item from the set of items returned from a filtering process. In this paper, we propose using a multi-dimensional visualization as an alternative to the linear listing of focus items. We describe how visual abstraction based on a combination of structural equivalence and conceptual structure can be used to deal with a large number of items, as well as visual ordering based on the importance of facet values to support cross-facets comparison of focus items. This visual support for faceted browsing has been developed for visual exploration of text collections.