[Sigia-l] RE: search interface for cross tabs

[Matthew C. Clarke]

A week ago "Claude Steinberg" <CSteinberg at UserWorks.com> wrote this ...

> 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. =20

There were a couple of replies, but it seemed to me that they missed the
point. The problem is not how to navigate a facetted classification, but how
to build a multi-dimensional query. Am I right Claude?

You do not want users to click links down a hierarchy (or even through some
more complex network) to get to the one point in a classification scheme,
but to specify search conditions by selecting values from a set of
attributes (and perhaps multiple values for each attribute) in order to
retrieve data that falls into the intersection of those conditions. Correct?

There are non-web user interfaces for this task, as you probably know, such
as nested pivot tables where new dimensions can be dragged to either axis of
the table, and where filters can be applied to any dimension. But I haven't
seen a good implementation on the web. It is hard to see how it *could* be
done effectively in HTML, even with a liberal sprinkling of JavaScript --
the task demands far more complex user-manipulation than is possible with
hyperlinks and selectable lists. The web browser controls are still very
primitive in comparison to what one can do in a traditional software
application, and tasks such as yours are probably best implemented for the
web in a Java applet.

Matt.