[Wasabi Proposal] End user search language

[Mikkel Kamstrup Erlandsen]

2007/2/19, Calum Benson <Calum.Benson at sun.com>:
>
> On Wed, 2007-02-14 at 14:29 +0100, Mikkel Kamstrup Erlandsen wrote:
> > 2007/2/13, Calum Benson <Calum.Benson at sun.com>:
> >         On Mon, 2007-01-29 at 12:51 +0100, Mikkel Kamstrup Erlandsen
> >         wrote:
> >         > 2007/1/29, Jean-Francois Dockes
> >         <jean-francois.dockes at wanadoo.fr>:
> >         >         Mikkel Kamstrup Erlandsen writes:
> >         >         > Hi All,
> >         >         >
> >         >         > I put together a first take on formalizing an end
> >         user
> >         >         search language.
> >         >         >
> >         >         >
> >         http://wiki.freedesktop.org/wiki/WasabiUserSearchLanguage
> >         >
> >         >         - Which of OR and AND has priority ? (does (A AND B
> >         OR C) mean
> >         >            ((A AND B) OR C) or (A AND (B OR C)) ?
> >         >
> >         > I guess it is standard that AND takes precedence over OR,
> >         but maybe it
> >         > makes sense to reverse that in our case.
> >
> >         This is a perennial problem with designing boolean query UIs
> >         for average
> >         (i.e. non-mathematically-trained) users-- they expect "and",
> >         "or" and
> >         "not" to mean the same as they do in everyday language, but
> >         often they
> >         don't.  E.g.:
> >
> >         -  User asks for a list of "blue things and red things", and
> >         gets back a
> >         list of things that are both blue AND red (which in many
> >         contexts is an
> >         empty list).
> >
> >         - User asks for a list of things that are "not blue or green",
> >         and gets
> >         back a list of things that are every colour except blue
> >         (including
> >         green).
> >
> >         FWIW, this is why I personally prefer something like the eBay
> >         search
> >         "language" to Google's-- I always find it easier to remember
> >         how to
> >         construct more complex queries, and they never involve typing
> >         "and" or
> >         "or" :)  (But of course, I'm not really your "average user"
> >         either.)
> >
> >
> > I was not familiar with the eBay search language. I must say that I'm
> > not really thrilled at they way they use braces - ie. they are not
> > subexpressions. Also - you have to read the language spec to know what
> > they do.
>
> Agreed; as I said, I'm certainly not an average user either.
>
> That said, most "average users" are probably doing simple, one
> word/phrase searches most of the time in any case.  In which case, it
> may be acceptable to have them read instructions when they need to do
> something more complex, provided those instructions are sufficiently
> memorable that they don't have to read them again next time.  I found
> this to be the case with eBay's, but I often have to refresh my memory
> with Google's-- perhaps, admittedly, because Google is better at finding
> things without complex queries in the first place, so the need to use
> them is much less frequent.
>
> As others have said, though, it's pretty much vital to usability test
> this sort of thing as soon as you can.  Fortunately, command lines or
> other text UIs are often a lot easier to test than GUIs, as you can
> often get by with just a pencil and paper.


I don't think I'm the right guy to do usability testing. And I can pretty
much guarantee that the specs wont be ready in 2007 if I have to pull it off
alone.

The current proposal is a synthesis  of Apples spotlight language and
Googles search language. The only usability study I know of is the one we
did here at work pointing to the conclusions I outline in the specs. The
biggest problem is that this study was in a library and on a web interface
which might not represent desktop search very well.

Anyway if anyone has time to pick this up (soonish! - like really really
soonish), or know of existing usability tests please speak up.

Cheers,
Mikkel
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/xdg/attachments/20070220/e77aa7dd/attachment.htm