Musings on a single search box

Contacts
1

Dedicated to @Karson

For quite a few things in AdminPanelLand, that single search box in the “New UI” makes a lot of sense. I especially like the single search box that looks for both the product description and SKU. Those are exactly what I am most likely to search on. I seldom need to deviate into the Advanced Zone.

But in ContactLand, that single search box can look for a whole bunch of things: first name, last name, email, phone. At least the phone is only numbers, but for the rest pretty much any search term will give you far more answers than you need, unless you are looking up Mr. Mrkelwitz.

Try searching for “smith” and you’ll get a panorama of answers. First name Smithson, last Goldsmith, someone who lives on Blacksmith Lane, and the entire population of Smithville, not to mention smith@gmail.com and gmail@smith.com…

Except for the occasional Hortencia - a lovely name, but uncommon - one finds oneself needing to qualify a search with more than one term, or at the very least limit the field being searched. “Marc” in the first name, “Smi” in the last, and bam you have Marcia Smith.

To be sure, in theory you can type “Marc Smi” into the single box and Marcia Smith will be presented in all her glory, but too often the search simply hangs and never completes. (I suspect, like too many Smiths, it is too much for the little engine.)

Therefore, the expedient is to constantly slide down into the Advanced Zone to get one’s searching done. It seems silly to maintain this single search box in the face of such obvious utility of multiple fields.

One might argue that these multiple fields will take up to much screen space. But if you took the nine fields:

And arranged them 3x3, they would very nearly fit into the current real estate, and 2 columns wouldn’t be much worse:

And while you are at it, a prayer please for a Clear button that is always present.

Thanks.

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2

Love feedback like this @ElJefe

We loved the theory behind a single search box, in practice I’ll personally admit I don’t think it’s as seemless as hoped.

In the scenario that it started a fuzzy filter of results directly inside the searchbox like google does, I think it would be a lot better. But that’s a direction with a good chunk of work as well.

How often would you say you’re clicking “Advanced Search”?

Tagging @Andrea as well.

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The omni-box is susceptible to locking up the system for a lot of searches like email addresses.

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4

Because you never know when the system will start locking up and timing out on a Contact search, I click Advanced at least 90% of the time.

(It’s always seemed odd: the Contact search box can be fine one minute, and then the next any search box search locks up and times out, no matter how simple… and this never happens with the Product search)

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ps: If I’m the only user stuff like having to click Advanced every time is a minor annoyance, but trying to explain all these exceptions to non-technical staff just loads them up with clutter… and frankly it wastes your time too every time you have explain things like this to new users.

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We click on Advanced every time, not just the dev folks but we’ve trained all the wine club folks to do that as well. Otherwise, it times out, as mentioned above.

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We were told by support to use “Advanced Search”, as we have a lot of contacts. We tell our users to use it… but sometimes they forget and they will call me telling it timed out searching for a contact… would be great to see that as a feature!

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This capricious omnibox will, unfortunately, be @kelton’s legacy.

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And another thing. Even when I click the Advanced I’m still not there yet:

Darn Email box is still a scroll away. Makes working through zillions of pre-club emails a total delight, I must say.

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I hate to admit it but I am a slow learner. I cram everything in the single search box, get frustrated when it doesn’t return anything (and I know its there) and then remember to use the Advanced. So many clicks later, I get may contact info. I vote for Advanced being displayed on contacts as the default.

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