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
