Representing Perceptual Product Features in Databases

Many modern goods have both factual and perceptual features. While factual features such as technical specifications can easily be handled by existing database technology, perceptual features such as design or usage experience are very hard to deal with. However, with the huge success and growing market share of online shopping, retailers face the need to provided detailed and structured information about perceptual product features to their customers. In this paper, we analyze why dealing with perceptual product features in databases is difficult and summarize our current efforts on tackling this problem.