Actually, the idea of using AJAX to create a way to add and remove limits diagonally is exactly what U Virginia's blacklight interface does, although with a slightly different interface:
http://blacklight.betech.virginia.edu/ It's also similar to the way that Engineering Village allows for control of searches within its bibliographic databases. - David On Feb 4, 2008 3:42 PM, Genny Engel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hmm. From the problems they identify, their proposed solution of adding > Ajax controls to a moded search, in my opinion, utterly misses the > point. Moded searches (and moded interfaces generally) have long been > known to create usability problems. Rather than providing a search that > works differently depending on the previously selected settings, it's > better to let the user choose their options on the fly, so they don't > have to remember to toggle off an old setting. > > Many of the problems identified are things that are pretty easy to fix, > but every fix comes at a price. On our catalog we set the "advanced" > search not to include the heading browse, so the problem identified in > this article with people trying to apply bibliographic-level limits to > heading-level indexes just doesn't occur. The downside is, most people > don't find the heading browse ("Begins with ...") option when they do, > in fact, want an exact title. > > It'll be interesting to see the findings when the researchers test > their proposed interface. > > > > Genny Engel > Internet Librarian > Sonoma County Library > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > 707 545-0831 x581 > www.sonomalibrary.org > > > > >>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 02/04/08 11:05AM >>> > A New Zealand based study published by the ACM > > > White, H., Wright, T., and Chawner, B. 2006. Usability evaluation of > library online catalogues. In Proceedings of the 7th Australasian User > interface Conference - Volume 50 (Hobart, Australia, January 16 - 19, > 2006). W. Piekarski, Ed. ACM International Conference Proceeding > Series, vol. 169. Australian Computer Society, Darlinghurst, > Australia, 69-72. > > Money quote from abstract: > > "The evaluation found severe usability problems with online > catalogues--we found so many problems we were forced to use a card > sorting technique to understand and classify the problems." >