Providing Faceted Navigation

Facets are a way of labeling data so that it can be navigated in different ways. It enables users to browse information based on a particular characteristic of the data by narrowing the possible search results. Many commercial sites on the Internet use facets to guide their customers to a purchase.

Faceted navigation provides these advantages:

Searches return more relevant visits. Most queries are short and ambiguous, but a faceted navigation system provides an easy-to-use interface that enables users to clarify their intentions.
Navigation becomes a form of discovery, in which users may find related items that they did not realize were what they are looking for.
Users can pursue multiple paths to the same information. Each path is dynamically defined by the user through the navigation effort.

Different types of data have different facets. These are a few examples:

Wine: Color, variety, country, vintage, price
Recipes: Main ingredient, course, ethnicity, dietary restriction, holiday
Shoes: Gender, size, color, style

For a description of faceted navigation in Oracle Fusion Applications, see the Oracle Fusion Applications Administrator's Guide.

To create a faceted navigation system, create a facet tree using the Administration API.