I've found this option to be quite efficient: onClick, reveal a box around the search field and search button. Below the search field, add a list of useful filters (can vary across contexts).
Pressing Enter/the search button = a search w/o pre-filtering Selecting one of the filters = easy pre-filtering with minimal hand/eye coordination work. You can also add keyboard shortcuts for the search or tell the searcher that you can go up/down in the list using the up/down arrows. If you do, make sure pressing the Enter key actuates the search filter they have selected, not the unfiltered search. When the search result page is presented, make sure to display the pre-selected filter prominently so that you can re-configure the search on that page. Here are a few interesting links on the matter: - Stephanie Lemieux's presentation: Designing for faceted search: http://www.uie.com/articles/faceted_search - Daniel Tunkelang's book on faceted search: http://thenoisychannel.com/faceted-search-the-book/ - Marti Hearst's book, Search User Interfaces: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0521113792/ ________________________________________________________________ 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
