[Sigia-l] search interface for cross tabs

[Simon Willison]

At 18:36 01/08/2002 -0400, Claude Steinberg wrote:
>What is the best way to present front end search options for data in a 
>database that can be cross tabulated in many ways?  I'm currently working 
>on a site that uses multiple drop down menus, but there are categories 
>within the choices in each menu, not all combinations of criteria are 
>possible, and the number of options gets so large that to keep them 
>manageable, the page currently offers only a few options in each menu and 
>then reloads with more of the available options in the other fields 
>whenever a user selects an option in one of the fields, so if you've 
>already selected options from fields higher on the page you may have to 
>start all over on those fields.

Have you seen http://facetmap.com/ ? It has an excellent demo of 
hierarchical faceted navigation, with three different browsing methods that 
you can switch between (Columnar, Yahoo style and drop down menus). It may 
help provide some insight in to your problem.

Hope that helps,

Simon Willison