Re: [Usability]Re: A (Re)"search" idea

[Joaquin Cuenca Abela <e98cuenc free fr>]

On Sat, 2002-12-14 at 21:52, Jens Askengren wrote:
> lör 2002-12-14 klockan 18.37 skrev Joaquin Cuenca Abela:
> 
> > Again, why do you need a "search forward" and a
> > "search backward"?
> > 
> > The serial way of highlight match by match is much
> > slower than showing all the matches at once.
> 
> That depends on how you use the search function. I can think of the
> following usages:
> 
> - Look for keywords in text to speed up reading.
> 
> - Jump to the given place in a document (a function, section etc).

Yes, I agree.  It's certainly harder to scroll to reach a match than,
say, just press ctrl-s (to use a emacsism).

But the current interfaces are build around only the second use-case.  A
*trivial* to understand action to a non-geek, has become something that
needs a dialog box, 3 buttons, and 2 check boxes and that almost always
moves the cursor.  And I'm speaking of one of the simplest dialog box
that you can find out there.

If the user only wants to "find the occurrences of a word in the text"
(which seems pretty honest), all that is just bloat.

I guess that the first use-case is specially useful to programmers
('cause of the extremely poor hypertext capabilities of code editors),
and that's why an interface that primes the first use-case became the
norm.

IMO, something as what I showed (no buttons at all, no checkboxes at
all) performs extremely well in the second use case.  Adding a "go to
the next match" when the user press enter and having a "current match"
highlighted differently will help those that are on the first use-case.

I don't think you need a "wrap around" check box, because the user can
not be surprised if the computer takes him to the beginning of the
document (remember, he is able to see all the matches, and he knew that
he was at the end of the document).

I don't think you need a "search backward".  If the user is able to go
with the mouse to the check box, he can very well also scroll to the
match that interests him.

Cheers,