Consultation on the future of quick sesrch

[PeterJ]

It's early days, but what I'm in favour of currently is as follows:

Current quick search goes, to be replaced by three search boxes.

Search for a game
Search for an author
Search for a Publisher

All the above will have strict search enabled.

Advanced search goes onto a new page (maybe), or is accordion style.

As I mentioned yesterday, I was quite happy with the quick search as it was.

Do remember when comparing search results to other sites, that they may only have titles upto 2013. This was a mistake made yesterday with the search term Jetpac.

I would just repeat the comments made by [mention]R-Tape[/mention] yesterday:

I think it was fine (not perfect) before, and that we need to stop tinkering.

You are never going to get perfection or a solution that suits everyone, and fine is fine.

[PROSM]

[...]
Yes, but that's why the change shouldn't have been made so hastily. Right now, if I do a quick search for Hewson, I will see "UNKNOWN. No results returned. Please try searching for a different title!", and various labels boxes underneath that will confuse any newb, or non-newb.
[...]

As a suggestion, perhaps the message should read more like: "No matches for [search term]. Please try rephrasing your query, or perhaps use the advanced search." It doesn't solve the underlying problem, but it will help in prompting users to try something more specific.

It's early days, but what I'm in favour of currently is as follows:

Current quick search goes, to be replaced by three search boxes.

Search for a game
Search for an author
Search for a Publisher
[...]

I agree with the separate search types, but from a desktop perspective, it might be neater and more compact to have a dropdown box for the type of search next to the input box (i.e. Search for {game\author\publisher}) rather than three separate search boxes. How that would play out on a mobile device, however, is uncertain.

[PeterJ]

Thsnks [mention]PROSM[/mention],

Yes, if we go down that route we can play around with the arrangements and see what looks best.

[RWAC]

I think the quick search should be just that, a quick search. I should be able to type in anything and get a result.
If i want a more refined search I can use the advanced search.

[Alessandro]

I think the quick search should be just that, a quick search. I should be able to type in anything and get a result.
If i want a more refined search I can use the advanced search.

Me too. I use the quick search about 90% of the time and do not wish it to be turned into something that is neither quick nor refined enough.

[R-Tape]

As a suggestion, perhaps the message should read more like: "No matches for [search term]. Please try rephrasing your query, or perhaps use the advanced search." It doesn't solve the underlying problem, but it will help in prompting users to try something more specific.

But before we made this change, searching for "Bob Pape" or "Hewson" would have given choices (didn't it?). Changing the 'unknown' message is merely doubling down on the tinkering problem.

It's early days, but what I'm in favour of currently is as follows:

Current quick search goes, to be replaced by three search boxes.

Search for a game
Search for an author
Search for a Publisher

I really hope we don't do this - we already have the advanced search. This is just adding to a sea of boxes.

It was fine before. I think the search is at the stage where we 'fix' one thing, which causes another problem to pop out somewhere else. We need to stop making work for ourselves, especially when it's not improving things.

(IT WAS FINE BEFORE!!! )

[StooB]

If i want a more refined search I can use the advanced search.

That's only useful if you know what you're looking for. Someone using the quick search doesn't necessarily know that Elite was published by Firebird, or Jetpac was published by Ultimate.

[PeterJ]

I've asked Einar to revert the change [mention]R-Tape[/mention].

My thought would be to have the three boxes on a copy of the homepage so we can fully test and review.

[PeterJ]

If i want a more refined search I can use the advanced search.

That's only useful if you know what you're looking for. Someone using the quick search doesn't necessarily know that Elite was published by Firebird, or Jetpac was published by Ultimate.

But before these changes Jetpac and Elite were on the first page results 5 or 6 anyway of quicksearch.

As mentioned earlier Jetpac appears earlier at WoS because they don't have post 2013 titles.

Try searching for Elite on WoS.

[StooB]

But before these changes Jetpac and Elite were on the first page results 5 or 6 anyway of quicksearch.

As mentioned earlier Jetpac appears earlier at WoS because they don't have post 2013 titles.

Try searching for Elite on WoS.

Elite was on the third page of the search results as reported here, it's now in fifth place. I would imagine "The Hit Squad" by Code Masters was even worse, it's now the only title returned.

[PeterJ]

Thanks [mention]StooB[/mention]. I can't verify that currently, so can't confirm its accuracy

Best to use advanced search then and enter in the title field. Where a game title is the same as a publisher name then there will always be these issues.

The general consensus is to leave things as they were. People just need to learn to use advanced search if they can't scroll through search results.

Websites go into maintenance mode where only serious bugs are fixed with existing functionality, but new features are still introduced. This is where we are.

ZXDB is open source so anyone can make their own front end as we have done.

As long as at least 51% of users are happy, then I'm happy.

The more time we spend on stuff like this, the less time we have time to work on your 26 trillion bug reports.

I know how I would prefer spending my precious spare time.

[dfzx]

But before these changes Jetpac and Elite were on the first page results 5 or 6 anyway of quicksearch.

As mentioned earlier Jetpac appears earlier at WoS because they don't have post 2013 titles.

That's sort of like saying "we have a superior data set so our search comes out a bit crap." I do appreciate you're not really saying that though.

The bottom line is that searching for Jetpac at WoS yields the one you want at the top of the results list. On SC it's at position 4, which on my landscape-oriented monitor is below the fold and I have to go looking for it. That makes WoS appear better. Same for Commando. And Elite. And Cobra. And quite a few others, particularly those with single word titles.

R-Type says that's fine, and for him it probably is. But I've made a bit of a mission in recent months of putting links to SC in Reddit and other places, to try to drive new users to this site. It troubles me that when someone follows a link I put in, then puts something obvious into the quick search, they might get a completely non-obvious result and draw a conclusion about SC based on that.

*Edit, it appears a decision has been taken. Fair enough.

[PeterJ]

Hi [mention]dfzx[/mention],

You are right in that, that (not sure about my grammar there!) was not the reason for mentioning it, but you are comparing a dataset with two titles with the name Jetpac in them and one with 9. You can't compare the two. It's a misleading comparison. If we took away all the new titles you would just get two results like WoS, and with alphabetical sorting Jetpac would be top.

You lot need to stop creating new games!

Best wishes.

[clebin]

The general consensus is to leave things as they were. People just need to learn to use advanced search if they can't scroll through search results.

I think the current search works really well in most cases. As mentioned in the other thread, a proper 'fuzzy' search like ZXInfo offers with Elasticsearch is a nice-to-have in the longer-term but nothing more. It requires work to get the weighting of different fields right, not to mention the initial indexing. In the beginning it'll create its own problems so it's something that would probably have to live in beta for a while anyway.

I've been using the site a lot lately and for 99% of searches, it's great. I don't mind scrolling a bit to find what I want and I doubt most users do. I usually spot something else of interest while I'm doing it. The one quick & easy change that I think that's been mentioned already would be to have an 'Advanced search' link directly under the search box in the header so it's accessible on every page (even though it's effectively repeating the homepage link).

[PeterJ]

Thanks [mention]clebin[/mention],

That's a good idea. We can add that link.

[R-Tape]

R-Type says that's fine, and for him it probably is.

I didn't mean that specifically is fine, of course it's not optimal. I've said elsewhere that it's not perfect. I think we need to spend a decent amount of time looking at what people are using the search for (you said yourself you don't use it a great deal), and if anything needs changing, base it on that.

[PeterJ]

Quick search has reverted to how it used to be.

We will collect the entries into this box for the next 2 or 3 months, and review then.

Remember, advanced search is your friend.if you are searching for the game Elite then use the Title entry box.

[akeley]

I did search for Elite and admittedly it is a bit of a 'mare. It says "Titles matching "elite"" but actually doesn't display just titles - resulting list has entries with words "elite" appearing anywhere in the page, even in comments such as: "Almost identical to Best of Elite Vol 1." And the Elite is now on page 3.

Perhaps narrowing quick search to just titles would help. You could also display the rest (publishers, groups, etc) in openable, headlined groups below.

Also, several entries on the front page (ACE, 3DC, 6-pak, maybe more) do not even have the word "elite" in their descriptions. I suppose they got included via the Hit-Pak /Elite connection, but that's something for advanced, links-deep kinda search.

[PeterJ]

Hi [mention]akeley[/mention],

Thanks for the feedback. If you want Elite the game then users will have to use Advanced search. It is a mare as you say because there is a publisher called Elite too.

Good point about Titles matching, I will change to results matching.

Quick search equals whole database search.

Once we have two or three months of data from the data collection we can review again. In the meantime Quick search will get a better name such a quick whole database search.

We also need an FAQ like WoS have.

[R-Tape]

Perhaps narrowing quick search to just titles would help. You could also display the rest (publishers, groups, etc) in openable, headlined groups below.

That's what 'titles' is for in the advanced search. Doing that to the quick search means nobody can search for authors, publishers or whatever else with it. In my opinion that creates a bigger mare. Maybe it can be improved*, but not in a knee-jerk fashion.

*I agree that having the biggies, JetPac, Manic Miner, JSW, Elite etc, appearing at the top is best, but that's not the only thing to bear in mind. Maybe (not yet!) a shortlist of the biggies could be drawn up and an exception made to the search? Or maybe not, maybe that would slow it down. Don't know how it works.

Hi [mention]akeley[/mention],
Once we have two or three months of data from the data collection we can review again. In the meantime Quick search will get a better name such a quick whole database search.

Sounds good to me.

[akeley]

That's what 'titles' is for in the advanced search. Doing that to the quick search means nobody can search for authors, publishers or whatever else with it. In my opinion that creates a bigger mare. Maybe it can be improved*, but not in a knee-jerk fashion.

I know, which is why I have suggested expanding that "tabbed" layout - it is already there anyway, and making it clickable, so these groups are closed by default. In practice then, you would first get the TITLE (book, game, whatever) results with scr$ & details (I think it's safe to say that people mostly look for these) and below the rest of the "less popular" results.

Nevertheless I'm totally happy to shut up now and wait for some the science of the new research appearing. Off to play Target: Renegade

(But the thing I mentioned about deep-links being in the results anyway seems to be a bug. Sorting that out would already narrow down the list substantially.)

[PeterJ]

Hi [mention]akeley[/mention],

Because they have a connection Elite the company they are intended to be included. It's not just having Elite in the description, it's having links to the company Elite. As you suggest, Ace was re-released by Elite. I know some users don't like this, but others do and we just can't please everyone. I gave up ont that long time ago.

As you say, we can review again when have have lots of data to go through.

I'm off to write an FAQ!

Enjoy your gaming session. Shoot a few baddies for me...

[Einar Saukas]

If anyone is interested in comparing different approaches, the main site now implements the original quick search:

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/list?text=elite

and the alternate site provides the more strict quick search and also the option to search using google directly:

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/x-list?text=elite

[Alessandro]

Are you sure Einar? I just did a quick search for Cobra and it returned 8 pages of stuff, about 90% of which is completely unrelated to that

[PeterJ]

Just to add (and avoid even more confusion) that this is testing by [mention]Einar Saukas[/mention] on his own version of the homepage and is being done off his own back.

It's of course great that Einar is doing this, but no changes to the main site will be made until we get the results of the data collection exercise and is fully discussed with a wide user group.

If we do change the quick search (which I hope we don't), then I'm keen on a test page to have the search box with a simple drop-down for Title, Publisher or Author using the tight results option.