FaceTag

Integrating bottom-up and top-down
classification in a social tagging system

 

What's FaceTag

FaceTag is a working prototype of a semantic collaborative tagging tool conceived for bookmarking information architecture resources. It aims to show how the flat keywords space of user-generated tags can be effectively mixed with a richer faceted classification scheme to improve the system information architecture.
Facets constitute an adaptive classification system capable to represent both a knowledge in movement (like that of collaborative environments) and several mental models at the same time. The blend of tags and facets is able to empower the information scent and berrypicking capabilities of the system.

Papers and documents

FaceTag, Las Vegas IA Summit 2007 :: [PDF]
FaceTag interface demo video [opens in new window] :: [SWF]

FaceTag, Berlin EuroIA Summit 2006 :: [PDF]
FaceTag slides from the EuroIA 2006 presentation :: [PDF]

References

• From Pace Layering to Resilience Theory: The Complex Implications of Tagging for Information Architecture
• Hierarchical Subject Relationships in Folksonomies
• Strict faceted classification
• The Design of Browsing and Berrypicking Techniques for the Online Search Interface
• Using information scent to model user information needs and actions and the Web

The crew

Emanuele Quintarelli is an IT consultant, customer experience expert and information architect in Reed Business Information. After graduating in Computer Sciences, he completed a master in Multichannel User Experience and leaded a number of projects for content management, document management and portal systems with a specific focus on user centered processes and methodologies. Since 2005 he is working on the evolution of collaborative tagging platforms through his blog, papers and talks.
In 2006 Emanuele organized the first italian IA Summit and his website is Infospaces.

Andrea Resmini is an information architect. An IT professional since 1989, Andrea holds a master degree in Architecture and has been a teaching assistant of generative design at the Politecnico di Milano, Faculty of Architecture, and a visiting researcher at JIBS in Jönköping, Sweden. He is now a Ph.D. candidate at CIRSFID, the Department of Computer Science and Law, University of Bologna, where he works on IA issues concerning historical and juridical online databases and topic maps.
Andrea is an OSCOM Board Member and his website is resmini.net.

Luca Rosati is a freelance Information Architect and assistant professor in Informatics for Humanistic Science (i.e. Information Architecture and Human Computer Interaction) at University for Foreigners of Perugia (Università per Stranieri di Perugia), in Italy. In 2003 he founded Architecta, the first Italian mailing list in IA, and currently runs Trovabile an IA magazine (Trovabile is a neologism and linguistic calque on the English Findable).
Luca is co-author of the book "Organizing Knowledge. From Lybraries to Information Architecture for the Web" (Milan, 2006). His website is lucarosati.it.

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