(Snip)
In conclusion, we should have a search interface containing three basic
elements:
- a big search box -- Google has a simple front page with a centralised
search box for a reason
- some common options, like those proposed by FT2:
On 31.10.2008 13:13:13, FT2 wrote:
* Articles
* Articles and article discussion
* Articles, discussion, project space, and project talk
* Project and project talk spaces
* Images, categories, templates and their talk pages
* All namespaces
* Custom
- and finally a "Go" button.
Leon
People are familiar with Google. A somewhat similar interface approach would
seem familiar. With an "Advanced search" button.
I'd consider also using a second trick Google does. It tries to pick out a
few specific useful links and highlight them first. In our case, pages with
<text> in the title, or sequentially in the text as a string, may be more
likely to be high quality hits, than pages that "just had the words
scattered somewhere in the text". Maybe highlight a few of those? So the
output might be:
<Hit #1 + sample text>
<Hit #2 + sample text>
<Hit #3 + sample text>
---> Click here for more pages with X in the title
<Hit #4 + sample text>
<Hit #5 + sample text>
<Hit #6 + sample text>
<Hit #7 + sample text>
--> Click here for more pages containing the text "X"
<Regular hits from here on>
FT2