The concept of searching a rapidly-changing data set, as you've indicated, is somewhat at odds with terms like "accurate", "static" and "complete".
The first thing I'd do is to look at places where this sort of search is occurring right now to see whether this matches the mental model you're shooting for. Depending on how rapid "rapid" is, you could look at something like google blog search or a twitter hashtag search. Either would fit the description of very possibly being out-of-date by the time you view it. Based on your description, it sounds like you might be talking about a more structured search, where the results (at least) take on the same structure across all your queries. If this is the case, then you do indeed need to figure out whether each subsequent search means going back to the original source data, even it it's changing. Depending on the cost of that search, I'd maybe consider a two-phase UI, where a user can play with search terms with a lite result set until they're comfortable they've got the search right, and then submit a real search that pulls a full result set. Sorry if these seem a bit vague - I'm trying to grasp what you're shooting for. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=47183 ________________________________________________________________ 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
