Business applications: what are the main features of the search form?

Question

A typical business application often uses forms that are used for search.

Some basic features:

• Panel containing search criteria
• Grid for displaying results
• Grid sorting
• Detail page that opens when an item is selected in the result grid

What other features do you expect in the business application search functionality?

Answer 1

How about being able to save your search criteria so that you can easily re-search later. Or, to easily, cleanly, print a list of results.

Answer 2

Maybe this is a little corny, but this image makes sense:

dead link ImageShack removed

Do this as shown in the second example, not the third.

There is a well-known principle of extreme programming - YAGNI . I think that it is absolutely applicable to almost any problem. You can always add something new if necessary, but it’s much harder to delete something that already exists, because someone is already using it, even if it’s wrong.

Answer 3

If clearing of the search is allowed (taking into account the search result, limited search in the future for current results), you can also add a palette system so that the user can see the sequence of refinements that lead you to the current result -set - and, clicking on the breading, go back to previous step of refinement.

Answer 4

Facet search :

_{(source: msdn.com )}

This is displayed in the area in the right ellipse. There are filters, and the mechanism shows the number of results that will remain after applying the filter. This is very useful and can be done painlessly on some search engines such as Apache Solr . Of course, implement this only if the filters make sense in your task.

Answer 5

Aggregate summary information, for example, amount (s), quantity or percent.

One or more menus, such as the context menu context menu for the grid, the ribbon, or the menu at the top.

Answer 6

Your list of user interface elements is good. Export, print (ask if this is really necessary for printing?), Category / tag and language selection are worth considering. Smart and working pagination (do not forget to order).

Please do not force the search to open in a new one (or, even worse, always in the same window). Search results links must be sliding (always use GET)

But it’s really important to have a functional (i.e. really good) algorithm. Mostly on google sites, because their search engine, coughing, is everywhere. You are looking for a function diagram, technical specifications, price, etc., Not interested in press releases and vica-versa.

Search engine providers offer integration into company websites.

Answer 7

Use auto-complete when possible in the text input fields.

If you use selected or combined fields with related information, try and use conversations to organize the information.

If the results depend on location, try and follow the corresponding results.

Also remember that the search form is as simple as possible, down to one text field. To refine your search, you can have an alternative form as the "advanced search interface".

Answer 8

Printing, export.

Answer 9

Grid for displaying results

Be careful not to show results that the user does not have the right to see (roles / permissions / access rights).

The detail page that opens when an item is selected in the result grid

If the user tries to bypass links to the search page and enter any document directly, check the permissions again.

Answer 10

Verification, verification, verification.

It should be very difficult for me, almost impossible, to launch a request that does not make sense. those. start date starting after the end date.

Answer 11

Export a numerical dataset (even if it has only one numerical column, therefore just the default) for CSV to import into Excel (people love this feature, even if only 1% of users use it with anyone regularly ask themselves when is the last time you have allocated something for copy-n-paste. Would it be easier to open CSV?

Re-configurable search queries (think of using the site on Google :-). People who use the search utility will appreciate this. People who do not know this do not know.

Ability to select to display 1 entry, 5 entries, 100 entries, 1000 entries, etc. "Paging" I think we usually call it;).

You mentioned sortable grids. Someone else mentioned automatic or automatic counting. This is good if (again) you have mostly numerical data. But these are almost reporting-oriented features.

Hope this helps.

Answer 12

One thing you can do is drop most of your normal searches in plain English. for example, "High Sales in New York in the Last 5 Days." This is the equivalent of a user choosing a quantity, city, date ranges, etc. It’s convenient for them.

Another thing is to have several tabs of search criteria based on the user's perspectives. Like "sales search", "search reports", "administrator search", etc.

Also consider limiting the number of records that result from the search, and allow users to perform narrower search queries. It depends on the needs of the business.

Answer 13

The most commonly used search option specified first and in a known place.

Answer 14

I think your requirements are good. Take a replica from Google. Google got it right. One text box where you type what you want and your engine spits out answers. Most people will try this, and if the answers are good enough, then this is what they will use. In the background, you probably want to flatten all the data into a large honkin table, and then index it or use an SQL query with LIKE in it.

However, you probably want to allow the user to refine the search. To do this, you have a link to "Advanced Search" and use the form there to specify filter criteria. This allows the user to reset the results if the basic search is not good enough. For the results on the th page, you will definitely want to sort by key fields, but do this after creating the initial result set.

Answer 15

It depends on the content you are looking for. Make it relevant :) Searching always looks easy, but it can be incredibly difficult to get right.

Answer 16

Not mentioned, but very important, I think, is a search that really works. This element is often ignored and makes the rest a bit controversial.