[Sigia-l] The A>B, B>A problem

[Tanya Rabourn]

On Nov 5, 2004, at 5:54 PM, Leonard Will wrote:

> I think that the problem you have described is adequately named as 
> "choice of citation order [for an indexing string or subject 
> heading]", with or without the words in brackets, depending on whether 
> the context makes them unnecessary. You could call it something like 
> "choice of alternative citation orders for different user groups" or 
> some variation on these expressions.

I think the problem Peter describes is very similar to citation order, 
but perhaps the difference is that his problem context is top down 
whereas the former is bottom up. Peter wonders how to order the facets 
to get to the item. With citation order I imagine the question to be 
something like, I have the item, in what order do I put the facets to 
describe it? I can see how it's the same thing though.

The really irritating thing about having to take facets and place them 
in a hierarchical browsing structure is how little "scent" they have. 
Could a user guess after selecting a country that the next menu will 
contain colors? Maybe so since wine's facets are familiar to most, but 
it's not quite as predictable as drilling down in some sort of 
geographical context from country to state/province to city -- general 
to specific.

-Tanya