relational navigation (more on facets)
David Weinberger, in his blog, has just posted about a new patent related to faceted navigation (see my earlier post for my initial wishlist). I’m curious to see if/when this trickles down to a publicly available tool.
Choice complicates the decision-making process (that’s pretty close to tautological on one hand, but it’s not so cut-and-dried as it first seems: some constraints lead to more efficient progress to an “end,” but when there are too many constraints, the “end” might be in the wrong spot), but choice is also empowering (if also effort- and time-consuming). I would imagine the “optimal” amount of choice for efficient – and effective – navigation of solution space is going to turn out to be context-sensitive both locally and globally.
I’m sorry for writing on such an abstract level (fleshing this out in writing with concrete examples will have to wait until I have more time available), but I’ve just finished reading Duncan Watt’s Six Degrees, a primer on network science, and as a result, I’m seeing evidence of networks everywhere.