GUI Design Input

[Tom Butler]

This is more of a subjective design question, but I thought I would put it out to the group for any input:   Here is what I’m trying to accomplish: user searches the database (using keywords and user location (zip code)) search results (list of data columns from the database) are returned and displayed to the user (may be multiple pages of results to scroll through) user selects items and adds to their list (will likely restrict number of items they can add to max of 5 or 10)   In a way this is a classic shopping cart example (though this is not a store where user is purchasing items.)  However, one usability issue that has always annoyed me with shopping carts (with some implementations) is that when you select an item, the user is taken to the shopping cart contents page, and then has to press another button to return to the original page (containing the search results) to add more items.    Instead of doing this, I’d like for the user to be able to select items from the search results, and then view the items they have selected in a different area (box) on the same page – this way the user does not have to go back and forth between the search results page and the shopping cart.  The area/box displaying their selected items should stay in place even as they scroll through multiple pages of data (i.e.,  user searches and finds 100 hits; from page 1 they select 2 items; from page 5 of the result sets they select 3 items; the selected items box should display the 5 items even as they scroll through the rest of the search results.)   Has anyone seen any good web site examples similar to this or have any input to this design?  My main concern with this approach is the layout – having enough room to display everything in a user-friendly manner (this is why looking at some good examples may help.)  Note this design may also imply that I have two forms each containing a datatable on the same page – not sure if there would be issues with this.   Thanks for any comments. Tom