Re: [Usability] Some usability feedback

[<john erling blad aftenposten no>]

> >For showing the results, hiding the non-matching items sounds like a
> >bad idea. If I type 'abd' when I really mean 'abc', it would hide the
> >real target. But the worst thing is that it looks like the items are
> >disappearing, possibly without any indication why this is happening
or
> >a obvious way to cancel the process.
> >
> >
> I must say I am not that convinced. Suppose the quick-search box is
> always visible, and that it _blinks_ very apparently when not empty.
> Then it seems to me that both problems you raised are solved: 1. the
> user could fail to notice he typed `abd' instead of `abc', and 2. he
> would never be puzzled why some files have disappeared, because he is
> constantly reminded the files are being narrowed.

You definitely *want* to remove those items that does *not* match some
criteria. You search because you have to many items and need to narrow
down to some few items. If you don't need to narrow down you don't need
to search.

Aka, a search without removing items from the current view is more or
less meaningless.

This is what boolean search engines typically do. It works out quite
well if you can specify distinct properties the searched item should
have.

Still you could get around with some alternate models for how you remove
something. For example, it could be possible to do some kind of
sort-by-ranking where those ranked higher (those that do match) are
placed before those with lower rank (those that don't match).

This is what statistical/Bayesian/probabilistic search engines do, but
also boolean search engines when the dataset is sufficiently large.
(Well this is an approximation but it works out as a simple description)

The important point is that you must somehow limit the number of items
the user has to scan visually. If this is done by visually removing some
items or by grouping them somehow is less important.

John