[PLIP-Advisories] Re: [Plone] #9352: combination of search results plips

plip-advisories at lists.plone.org plip-advisories at lists.plone.org
Sun Aug 16 23:21:36 UTC 2009


#9352: combination of search results plips
--------------------------+-------------------------------------------------
 Reporter:  laurenskling  |        Owner:  elvix   
     Type:  PLIP          |       Status:  assigned
 Priority:  minor         |    Milestone:  4.0     
Component:  Unknown       |   Resolution:          
 Keywords:                |  
--------------------------+-------------------------------------------------

Old description:

> This PLIP is a combination of the two accepted PLIP's about the search
> results page. Tickets #9271 and #9282 by Laurens Kling and Geir Baekholt.
>

> == Motivation ==
>
> “Search-dominant” navigating is one of the three popular ways to reach
> goals on a website. Search isn't just useful for finding content, it's
> how many people navigate. The search of Plone could do better to help
> these people. Here are some small adjustments that could help out big
> time. (this PLIP is only about normal search, not advanced or live
> search).
> Plone uses search extensively. The search forms and results have,
> however, not been improved in a long time. There are several small steps
> that can be done to make the presentation of search results much more
> comfortable and practical to use.
>

> == Proposal ==
>

> - Location (path/URL) One of the main things the search results are
> missing is the location of the item. If you archive old items in folders
> called 'archive', try searching that one archive folder you are looking
> for. Adding the location (URL) gives users feed forward about the item.
> Google has a nice url display in green. This one can possibly (depending
> on performance impact) be improved even further by listing the titles of
> containing folders rather than their path.
>
> - Relevance. I have never understood the relevance of showing the
> relevance. It just adds noise and doesn't help the user. Sorting by
> relevance helps, not printing the relevance.
>
> - Search only in current section. Plone gives the opportunity to search
> within current section, which sadly is gone on the new plone.org. When
> checked, the resultpage doesn't give any feedback that the results are
> only from the certain section. It also doesn't give the opportunity to
> search again within this section. Adding a simple line states “searched
> in <section>” and a checkbox to search within it again could solve this.
>
> - Sorting. The search results can't be sorted in any way at the moment.
> Sort by: relevance (i.e the default), date (newest first), alphabetically
>
> - easy-to-read dates: "Last modified Nov 10, 2007 10:43 PM" is painful to
> read. "Last modified 2 weeks ago" makes sense when you read results and
> is more scannable.
>
> - Left align the description with the title, so the results are less
> painful to read.
>

> == Deliverables ==
>

> - A search results view that supports sorting
>
> - Updated ZPT and CSS for presenting the search results
>

> == Risks ==
>
> Potential of small performance loss by looking up real names and folder
> paths.
>
> Search should stay as easy as possible. Adding checkboxes to (normal)
> search makes it bigger then “just type and press enter”. If the the
> checkbox is unchecked by default this is still a simple searchbar, so I
> do not see any problems. Sorting search results will make the page need
> adjustments, there has to come a good UI for it.
>
> == Progress ==
>
> Prototyped in static HTML

New description:

 This PLIP is a combination of the two accepted PLIP's about the search
 results page. Tickets #9271 and #9282 by Laurens Kling and Geir Baekholt.


 == Motivation ==

 “Search-dominant” navigating is one of the three popular ways to reach
 goals on a website. Search isn't just useful for finding content, it's how
 many people navigate. The search of Plone could do better to help these
 people. Here are some small adjustments that could help out big time.
 (this PLIP is only about normal search, not advanced or live search).
 Plone uses search extensively. The search forms and results have, however,
 not been improved in a long time. There are several small steps that can
 be done to make the presentation of search results much more comfortable
 and practical to use.


 == Proposal ==


 - Location (path/URL) One of the main things the search results are
 missing is the location of the item. If you archive old items in folders
 called 'archive', try searching that one archive folder you are looking
 for. Adding the location (URL) gives users feed forward about the item.
 Google has a nice url display in green. This one can possibly (depending
 on performance impact) be improved even further by listing the titles of
 containing folders rather than their path.

 - Relevance. I have never understood the relevance of showing the
 relevance. It just adds noise and doesn't help the user. Sorting by
 relevance helps, not printing the relevance.

 - Search only in current section. Plone gives the opportunity to search
 within current section, which sadly is gone on the new plone.org. When
 checked, the resultpage doesn't give any feedback that the results are
 only from the certain section. It also doesn't give the opportunity to
 search again within this section. Adding a simple line states “searched in
 <section>” and a checkbox to search within it again could solve this.

 - Sorting. The search results can't be sorted in any way at the moment.
 Sort by: relevance (i.e the default), date (newest first), alphabetically

 - easy-to-read dates: "Last modified Nov 10, 2007 10:43 PM" is painful to
 read. "Last modified 2 weeks ago" makes sense when you read results and is
 more scannable.

 - Left align the description with the title, so the results are less
 painful to read.


 == Deliverables ==


 - A search results view that supports sorting

 - Updated ZPT and CSS for presenting the search results


 == Risks ==

 Potential of small performance loss by looking up real names and folder
 paths.

 Search should stay as easy as possible. Adding checkboxes to (normal)
 search makes it bigger then “just type and press enter”. If the the
 checkbox is unchecked by default this is still a simple searchbar, so I do
 not see any problems. Sorting search results will make the page need
 adjustments, there has to come a good UI for it.

 == Progress ==

 Implemented in plone.app.search

--

Comment(by elvix):

 Ready for review  (with some small bits still missing, noted in plip9352
 -search-results.txt)

-- 
Ticket URL: <http://dev.plone.org/plone/ticket/9352#comment:7>
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