[Sigia-l] search results and thesauri

[Ziya Oz]

"Michael Fry" wrote:

> So I guess my question is this: any recommendations for how you'd
> display the results in a scenario like this? Would you explicitly alert
> users to the cat-feline relationship so they better understand and
> appreciate the results? Would you simply choose not to show search terms
> in context? Something else?

If you expect words having *multiple* synonyms then arbitrarily selecting
one of the synonyms and returning results based on that is, well, arbitrary.
In that case, it'd be better to tell users that there was no direct hit and
ask them which one of the synonyms they'd like to see results for. That's
client/UI side.

On the server side, if optimization matters to you, then you need to
consider the effects *automatically* sending result sets to the browser. If
the user is not interested/familiar with 'feline' you wasted their time,
network bandwidth and server efficiency. On the other hand, giving them a
selection to choose from may mean a query is repeated at the server side,
with another round trip.

Of course, this is a perfect case for looking at logs to see which method is
more efficient for *your* app and users, from a technical POV.

Best,

Ziya