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Design Update

Inside Design: Search in Category

Inside Design: Search in Category
xiaoyu-shen
To help users find the most relevant information, we are investigating advanced search capabilities. As a first step, we would like to introduce 'search in (parent) category'. Read on to learn more.

Goal
Allow users to search within a (parent) category so they are able to find more relevant information.

Solution
While searching from different pages, the search scope changes along. For example, searching in homepage will get search results and suggestions from all categories, and searching in category page will get results and suggestions just from that specific category. An ‘category indicator’ is shown above the search bar in search results page. By clicking on the close button of the indicator, you will get global search results again.



Feedback
If you have any feedback, suggestions, questions feel free to drop us a comment below.
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8 replies

bjoern_schulze
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  • bjoern_schulze
  • Helper ⭐️⭐️⭐️
  • 344 replies
  • June 21, 2019
I like it!

One thing I could think of - but maybe you have this already on your mind for an expansion later: Right now it would only be possible to enlargen the search scope. But you couldn't limit it. So my suggestion would be: When the search scope isn't limited to a category, show a dropdown list of all categories (on the same position where the category indicator was before) to limit the search scope manually.
OVOdarran
Suvi Lehtovaara
LPortalupi
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  • OVOdarran
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  • xiaoyu-shen
    xiaoyu-shen
xiaoyu-shen
  • xiaoyu-shen
  • Author
  • Helper ⭐️⭐️
  • 341 replies
  • June 27, 2019
Hi @bjoern_schulze, thanks for your suggestion!
Based on your feedback, we made a new design for search result page with capability to apply/switch category filter. What do you think? 🙂

OVOdarran
bjoern_schulze
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    bjoern_schulze
bjoern_schulze
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  • bjoern_schulze
  • Helper ⭐️⭐️⭐️
  • 344 replies
  • June 27, 2019
Thank you for picking the feedback up!

I think the mobile version is intuitive and easy to understand for the user. Having the filter button right beside the search field is self-explanatory.

On desktop I feel like users won't make an intuitive connection between the content (search field and result list) and the sidebar (filter options). It looks like two separate things. Maybe wording can help, but maybe there is a UI option to make it easier to understand.

One other note: Have you checked the design, especially the filter list, and how it would behave in communities that have a lot of parent categories and categories? For example: Our community currently consists of 9 parent categories and (depending on the permissions upto) 42 categories. That could become a very, very long list (that's why I proposed a dropdown list).

Question: Will the filter list be multiple choice or "pick one"?
OVOdarran
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    OVOdarran
xiaoyu-shen
  • xiaoyu-shen
  • Author
  • Helper ⭐️⭐️
  • 341 replies
  • July 1, 2019
Hi @bjoern_schulze ,
Thanks for your quick feedback! To answer your question: the filter list is a 'pick one' single selection.
lila_meyer
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  • lila_meyer
  • Gainsight Employee ⭐️⭐️⭐️
  • 1447 replies
  • November 15, 2019

Glad to see this is under discussion and design. I’m starting to hear input from our customers that they’d like forum level filtering as well. We have a few parent categories for different products, and people want to be able to search for info that’s specific to that product without seeing results from other product categories.

Lila Krutel, Dir. Global Education Services
OVOdarran
Hiewwaiy
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Hiewwaiy
  • Hiewwaiy
  • Contributor ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
  • 39 replies
  • November 18, 2019

We agree with @lila_meyer, as i have already stated in this topic.

We also have different parent categories per product and our customers complain that they are not able to find the information they need. Most of our customers do not use all of our products, that is why they would like to search within a category that is relevant to them. I know it is a difficult question to answer, but do you have any idea when this will be picked up on your roadmap? 

Gr Hiewwaiy
lila_meyer
OVOdarran
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xiaoyu-shen
  • xiaoyu-shen
  • Author
  • Helper ⭐️⭐️
  • 341 replies
  • December 3, 2019

Hey @Hiewwaiy and @lila_meyer, thanks for bringing the feedback in. I can see that it is crucial for end users to find the right information easily in big communities like yours. Regarding your question about planning Hiewwaiy, advanced search is one of our items on the backlog (hence this investigation). We’re unable to communicate and commit on any timelines at this point. Once we’ll start developing this functionality we will update you via the roadmap updates here on inSpired, at that point we can share a more concrete planning.

OVOdarran
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    OVOdarran
OVOdarran
  • OVOdarran
  • Helper ⭐️
  • 137 replies
  • December 5, 2019

Search is a big one for us.  We are also looking at making sure this and the whole community is optimised for mobile as over half our users are visiting on mobile devices.   

 

@timcavey @NancyVics definitely worth a look. 

Community Manager // OVO Energy / Boost Power

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