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Subject:Designing a very specific Web interface? From:"Hart, Geoff" <Geoff-H -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Wed, 6 Dec 2000 08:48:58 -0500
Ruth Lundquist's company <<...builds databases of documents for clients (we
don't author the documents--they come from a variety of sources), which the
clients access via a secure web site hosted by us. We call these databases
"libraries"... Based on customer feedback & our need to market a
professional looking product, we are redesigning the search interface. My
gut-feeling is that the interface should look, feel, and function more like
a search engine you'd find on the web... because many people are familiar
with using that type of search interface. It differs from a search engine,
however, in that it is not a full text search. Customers can search using
specific criteria only. For example, manufacturer, trade name, CAS #, ...
They can not search the content of the actual document.>>
To me, this suggests that a standard search engine is the wrong approach
because it lets the user enter any word they like--and if that word isn't
the one you happen to have chosen, they won't find what they're looking for.
Instead, what you need to do is build a form of some sort that lets the
browser define what they're looking for using _only_ the existing
possibilities: checkboxes, radio buttons, drop-down menus, and the like.
This is much more efficient than an unconstrained search engine because it
presents users with only the keywords (or other settings) that you are
actually using in your library. This also makes it much easier to classify
new documents added to the library in the future: the "librarian" simply
uses the same form to pick and choose from among the same
keywords/settings/etc. the end-user sees.
There are two main downsides to this approach: First, because you are using
specific terms, you should probably provide a list of synonyms and
explanations, easily accessible via a mouseclick. Why? Because the terms you
choose won't always match the terms your customers will think to use, and if
there's enough of a mismatch, they may be unable to recognize the correct
choice. Second, if you add new keywords in the future, someone has to go
back through the entire library to ensure older documents are tagged with
the new keywords where appropriate.
"Technical writing... requires understanding the audience, understanding
what activities the user wants to accomplish, and translating the often
idiosyncratic and unplanned design into something that appears to make
sense."--Donald Norman, The Invisible Computer
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