@ Azmir: The Pump Audio Soundtrack tool was exactly the kind of inspiration I was looking for. A designer and I started sketching out concepts together last week, and it's similar to that tool. It has a good mix of browse-filtering, and I was in the search-then-filter mental set.
@ Santiago: Great challenges. To you point, though, people would start with "field of practice", since students would be happy to relocate for a new job. Think of it this way: Student studies environmental law in a Florida law school. A firm in Houston, TX, would see him/her as a perfect candidate, since they're looking for someone in the Gulf (of Mexico) region. Applying a "field of practice" filter and then something for "geography" would help them narrow to a mid-sized list that they can further winnow. @ Michael: I notice this proficiency w/ Boolean, too. Our challenge is that attorney's might 'destroy' their results if they enter a fields we don't index, and our search engine won't be that strong across all fields in the pilot. We will probably work in keywords for specific fields, and that's part of the overall challenge. Azmir's suggested Pump Audio has a distinct selection for keywords, which suggests a good signal to users that the two methods are not necessarily equivalent. Thanks for the contributions. I'd love to hear more ideas or see more examples. This challenge becomes more frequent, not less. -Jay On Mon, Aug 4, 2008 at 10:18 AM, Michael Moore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote: > For what it's worth, in my experience lawyers are much better than average > users at forming boolean searches - they do it often in eDiscovery and > literature searches. (I've done a couple of eDiscovery applications and in > testing, the level of sophistication around searching was very high.) > The way these types of searches are usually run is to create a group of > result sets, and then manipulate the sets. So, for example: > > - licensed in state = California -> Set A > - type of law degree - JD -> Set B > - In A and B -> Set C > > Now, for folks not experienced in searching, I still think Kayak does an > amazing job with its checkboxes and sliders. > > Michael Moore > Pure InfoDesign > Mill Valley, CA > > On Thu, Jul 31, 2008 at 7:02 AM, Santiago Bustelo > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote: > > > In the employment website bumeran.com, we let the user start the > > search with as little as possible, and filter the results > > progressively. > > > > That takes a lot of guesswork out of the problem (making decisions > > about results you're going to get, if any, before getting them). And > > there is no difference if you start the search with keywords, or > > clicking in a category or suggestion. > > > > >From the 5 fields you mention, the better suited to be the search > > starter are "state licensed in" OR "state" (showing both will be > > confusing). Makes no sense to start a search by "field of > > practice", and getting mostly candidates thousands of miles away. > > > > Data is never distributed in an uniform fashion across categories, > > etc, and in many ocassions applying just one filter yields manageable > > results. With a well thought search engine, that is. If the search > > engine needs too much input from the user to mask out bad results, > > then the search "engine" is asking the user to do the walk. > > > > -- > > Santiago Bustelo // icograma > > Buenos Aires, Argentina > > > > > > . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . > > Posted from the new ixda.org > > http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=31744 > > > > > > ________________________________________________________________ > > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > > To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe > > List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines > > List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help > > > > > > -- > Michael B. Moore • Pure InfoDesign • 415.246.6690 M • > www.pureinfodesign.com > ________________________________________________________________ > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe > List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines > List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help > -- Jay A. Morgan Information Architecture & Scenario-based design. Design Patterns & Mental Models. ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
