[Dev] Re: Wiki pages for Virtuality presentation on Tuesday

[Brendan O'Connor]

Mimi, I was confused about what a faceted system actually is.  After  
reading what you wrote, my interpretation is that it's when

  (1) your data model supports "key: value" pairs attached to items
  (2) your UI does sorts and queries based on these key:value pairs.

By that understanding, iTunes is a faceted system with (1) Artist:,  
Title:, Album: keys, and (2) a UI that builds queries via navigation with  
these keys.

Then "tagsonomy" or "tag soup" would mean

  (1) your data model supports "value" tags attached to items.  [or, it  
supports key:value, but you always use the same key]
  (2) your UI does sorts and queries based on these "value" tags.

By this understanding, GMail labels, or any flat non-exclusive-membership  
category system, are these key-less "value" tags.

Are these useful definitions?  Since I don't think I understand what you  
mean, I just want clear definitions so I know I'm not misunderstanding  
things.

Brendan



On Sun, 17 Jul 2005 06:44:22 -0700, Mimi Yin <mimi at osafoundation.org>  
wrote:

> [I thought Brendan's comments might be interesting to the group, since  
> I'm sure his confusion will be shared by others.]
>
> [For those of you on this list who didn't receive the original emails on  
> this thread, the context is that we're going to have a staff  
> presentation of user research the Design team has done on various  
> classification systems and organizational structures and how the lessons  
> learned from that research manifests itself in the Chandler UI. Please  
> scroll down to the last message for context and to find links to the  
> wiki pages.]
>
> Brendan:
>
> Thanks for the quick feedback Brendan. I've added some examples to the  
> Glossary page.
>
> Do you feel like you're still feeling fuzzy about what a Faceted system  
> is? or just unsure about whether the iTunes is truly a faceted system?  
> The problem is that there are many different flavors of each of these  
> systems, so it's hard to pin down. In the most liberal sense, iTunes is  
> definitely a faceted system. Also, in the sense of "the least wrong  
> system", iTunes is definitely a faceted system...'cause it's sure in  
> hell not a hierarchy.
>
> I've also responded to your comment on the 3rd wiki page.
>
> On Jul 17, 2005, at 2:21 AM, Brendan O'Connor wrote:
>
>> Mimi: looks cool!  I put in content-specific comments on parts 2 and 3.
>>
>> here's one more thing that i figured would be better suited for to  
>> email:
>>
>> from the Preface glossary: I was initialy confused by "faceted  
>> classification system". Maybe throw in an example: Album:, Artist: mp3  
>> metadata, itunes facet browser (right?? I've read all 3 parts but am  
>> still not sure). You start using the terms a lot in the next section  
>> before fully explaining what they are.
>>
>>
>> Brendan
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sat, 16 Jul 2005 23:26:41 -0700, Mimi Yin <mimi at osafoundation.org>  
>> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> http://wiki.osafoundation.org/bin/view/Journal/PrefaceToHierarchyPapers
>>> http://wiki.osafoundation.org/bin/view/Journal/HierarchyPaper
>>> http://wiki.osafoundation.org/bin/view/Journal/ 
>>> HierarchyVersusFacetsVersusTags
>>>
>>> Here are 3 more links in preparation for Tuesday's Virtuality  
>>> presentation. (The scrollbar in your browser will get very small but,  
>>> don't worry, it's mostly a lot of pictures** ;o)
>>>
>>> It is in large part a continuation of the issues raised in the Clay  
>>> Shirky article, with a few twists and turns: http:// 
>>> shirky.com/writings/ontology_overrated.html
>>>
>>> I will be covering the material on the wiki pages lightly. Most of the  
>>> presentation will be focused on how all of this research applies to  
>>> the Chandler UI, so it would be best to familiarize yourself with some  
>>> of the concepts beforehand. Most of it should be comfortably  
>>> recognizable to people, though some of the examples might be a little  
>>> out there ;o)
>>>
>>> The goal of the papers is really to "make concrete and explicit" the  
>>> sort of gut-level shared understanding we all have of the Chandler  
>>> data model and how it manifests itself in the UI.
>>>
>>> The papers however, are still in the "1st drafts" stage, so  
>>> unfortunately you are all in some sense guinea pigs. Therefore, if and  
>>> when you come across something that just doesn't make any sense,  
>>> please feel free to share your feedback either directly to me or in  
>>> the form of comments on the page. This is exactly what I need to  
>>> improve these papers for more general consumption.
>>>
>>> There is a high-level overview of the 2 hierarchy papers on the  
>>> Preface page.
>>>
>>> The central question of Tuesday's presentation will be:
>>>
>>> Hierarchies are good at telling stories, precisely because they're so  
>>> inflexible and immobile. Facets and Tags are great at being flexible,  
>>> but horrible at telling stories precisely because they're so flexible  
>>> and mobile.
>>>
>>> How can we use the best parts of both systems in Chandler so that we  
>>> can have the proverbial cake and eat it too?
>>>
>>> Thanks!
>>>
>>> Mimi
>>>
>>> **The wiki is horrible at formatting pages and due to the very wide  
>>> images on the page, I would recommend printing out a copy to read the  
>>> text and following along on the wiki when you need to refer to images.
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/
>>
>



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