2007/2/19, Calum Benson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
On Wed, 2007-02-14 at 14:29 +0100, Mikkel Kamstrup Erlandsen wrote: > 2007/2/13, Calum Benson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > On Mon, 2007-01-29 at 12:51 +0100, Mikkel Kamstrup Erlandsen > wrote: > > 2007/1/29, Jean-Francois Dockes > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > > Mikkel Kamstrup Erlandsen writes: > > > Hi All, > > > > > > I put together a first take on formalizing an end > user > > search language. > > > > > > > http://wiki.freedesktop.org/wiki/WasabiUserSearchLanguage > > > > - Which of OR and AND has priority ? (does (A AND B > OR C) mean > > ((A AND B) OR C) or (A AND (B OR C)) ? > > > > I guess it is standard that AND takes precedence over OR, > but maybe it > > makes sense to reverse that in our case. > > This is a perennial problem with designing boolean query UIs > for average > (i.e. non-mathematically-trained) users-- they expect "and", > "or" and > "not" to mean the same as they do in everyday language, but > often they > don't. E.g.: > > - User asks for a list of "blue things and red things", and > gets back a > list of things that are both blue AND red (which in many > contexts is an > empty list). > > - User asks for a list of things that are "not blue or green", > and gets > back a list of things that are every colour except blue > (including > green). > > FWIW, this is why I personally prefer something like the eBay > search > "language" to Google's-- I always find it easier to remember > how to > construct more complex queries, and they never involve typing > "and" or > "or" :) (But of course, I'm not really your "average user" > either.) > > > I was not familiar with the eBay search language. I must say that I'm > not really thrilled at they way they use braces - ie. they are not > subexpressions. Also - you have to read the language spec to know what > they do. Agreed; as I said, I'm certainly not an average user either. That said, most "average users" are probably doing simple, one word/phrase searches most of the time in any case. In which case, it may be acceptable to have them read instructions when they need to do something more complex, provided those instructions are sufficiently memorable that they don't have to read them again next time. I found this to be the case with eBay's, but I often have to refresh my memory with Google's-- perhaps, admittedly, because Google is better at finding things without complex queries in the first place, so the need to use them is much less frequent. As others have said, though, it's pretty much vital to usability test this sort of thing as soon as you can. Fortunately, command lines or other text UIs are often a lot easier to test than GUIs, as you can often get by with just a pencil and paper.
I don't think I'm the right guy to do usability testing. And I can pretty much guarantee that the specs wont be ready in 2007 if I have to pull it off alone. The current proposal is a synthesis of Apples spotlight language and Googles search language. The only usability study I know of is the one we did here at work pointing to the conclusions I outline in the specs. The biggest problem is that this study was in a library and on a web interface which might not represent desktop search very well. Anyway if anyone has time to pick this up (soonish! - like really really soonish), or know of existing usability tests please speak up. Cheers, Mikkel
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