Cognitive framework of hierarchical navigation as matching of context, topic and/or resource-type concepts to taxonomy categories¶

Theory · All theories
Evidence · no claims cited

Description¶

The article proposes a cognitive framework in which navigating a taxonomy-based interface involves "a cognitive process of matching the context, topic and/or resource type to the taxonomy categories". It posits three processing steps: interpreting the terms displayed at a level of the taxonomy and relating them to the user's knowledge structure; relating the task concepts to the categories by identifying potential relationships; and hypothesizing the kinds of resources likely to be located within a category and estimating the likelihood of finding the desired resource there. The user then clicks a likely category and repeats the process, and may opt to use one or more of the three task concepts, the chosen one assumed to be the most salient for the user. The framework was used to interpret the results of the evaluation study.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• A user's information need represented as a context-topic-resource type triple, which the authors state is an assumption of the framework

Constraints¶

• The authors note they had not come across any model of hierarchical navigation and browse searching of taxonomies and hierarchical menus; the framework was used interpretively, not tested as a whole

Target Learners¶

• students and faculty of a library and information science department using a digital repository

Target Learning Objectives¶

• locating information resources in a digital repository by browsing a taxonomy-based interface

Claims¶

Related Theories¶

Examples¶

• Use resource types as subdivisions of their associated contexts rather than as separate facets

Key Sources¶

• Khoo, C.S.G., Wang, Z., & Chaudhry, A.S. (2013). Task-based navigation of a taxonomy interface to a digital repository. Information Research, 17(4) paper 547. http://InformationR.net/ir/17-4/paper547.html