A catalog or database of items capable of being searched may be organized into a browse tree structure. In accordance with aspects of the present invention, attributes that describe and are common to the items in each category can be assigned or associated with the browse node for the category. Such "browse node attributes" may be displayed with their respective associated item category. Accordingly, as a user searches the browse tree and or narrows his/her search to more specific item categories in a browse tree, the attributes corresponding to the more specific item categories can then be displayed as a superset of the attributes corresponding to a less specific category. Furthermore, the arrangement of attributes displayed to the user can be customized according to user preferences, clickstream analysis, or other techniques and the user may select which attributes are to be displayed.