[Sigia-l] search results page

[Marcel van Mackelenbergh]

Sarah Ockler said:
> For search within a site, the ability to sort by document type can be
helpful if you know what kind of 
> doc you're searching for (e.g., a PDF form vs. HTML content).
Advanced search options is another must.

I agree with Sarah. Not only the document type but all kinds of metadata
can help enormously to make a search result usable. These metadata
should be used to sort and filter the search result. Vivisimo and
Grokker make an attempt to group the search result on subjects. Kartoo
and Ask Jeeves use metadata to show what information is related. 

I think the optimal search result is browsable using a facet
classification. Siderean has a nice demo of how a search result in a
domain of recipes could look in a facet classification. Here is the
search result for "chocolate ice cream"
http://www.siderean.com/fooddemo.jsp?tn=0title&tv=chocolate+ice+cream&ss
=1

Now of course it is up to you what metadata support your target
audiences to navigate to the information they need. This is the art of
IA discipline.

Marcel


-----Original Message-----
IF you had to name your top ten best pratices for how search results
should be displayed, what would you say?  My list so far:
- Show the query terms at the top/bottom of the result list (or
thereabouts)
- Show the number of results, and the number of results per page of
results (i.e., Displaying 1-20 of 497...)
- Show Concordance, and bold terms that are matches from the query
- Show size of pages in result set (especially if they're a PDF, Word
Doc, etc.)
- Show URL to result
- Show icon or other identifier of result document type (HTML, PDF, XLS,
etc.)
- Do spell checking
- Page the result set, and offer links to go directly to the
previous/next page, as well as the next few pages (i.e., 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
5, etc.)
- Have a new search form on each results page, and pre-populate the
query field with the last query.
- Any category selection pull downs/checkboxes/radio buttons, etc.
should keep state between searches