Re: [Treebase-devel] query results not discarded upon new query

[Hilmar L. <hl...@ne...>]

Arlin - I agree completely. Would you mind adding this to the feature  
tracker (or given how broken from a usability perspective this is, you  
might as well add it to the bug tracker).

	-hilmar

On Nov 16, 2010, at 2:14 PM, Arlin Stoltzfus wrote:

> Dear all--
>
> I think the web-based search interface is misleading in a way that
> will frustrate users.  The search is progressive, but this isn't
> advertised, and users are not accustomed to it.  If a newbie issues a
> query, gets some results, and realizes from the results that she is
> searching for the wrong thing, then she is going to enter a new query
> value and try to search again.  She'll see either a) a yellow warning
> bar saying "No matching studies found", followed by the list of
> studies that were found (in the previous query), or b) a result list
> that is only a subset of what she really wants, because its a subset
> of the earlier botched query.
>
> This isn't an imaginary example.  It happened to me when I first tried
> the new query interface. Then it happened to me again because I forgot
> what I had learned the first time.
>
> I didn't see the "Discard all Results" button because I wasn't looking
> for it, and because its at the bottom of the list, which means that if
> you get more than 3 or 4 hits, its going to be below the browser pane
> and invisible.
>
> I would suggest to make each search independent, i.e., clear the
> results with each new query, rather than using a progressive search.
> Alternatively, the messages could be more informative and the
> "discard" button could be put at the top of the list.  In any case, it
> wouldn't hurt to widen the layout and abbreviate the titles so that
> the results list takes up less space.
>
> Arlin
> -------
> Arlin Stoltzfus (ar...@um...)
> Fellow, IBBR; Adj. Assoc. Prof., UMCP; Research Biologist, NIST
> IBBR, 9600 Gudelsky Drive, Rockville, MD
> tel: 240 314 6208; web: www.molevol.org
>
>
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-- 
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: Hilmar Lapp  -:- Durham, NC -:- informatics.nescent.org :
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