1.2 Enchancing User Search Experience

How else can we enhance our interface using different search forms? Let us assume, the most people know in advance whether they will need central air in their house or not. In this case, we can divide houses into two categories whether they have central air or not. We will create two search forms with the same fields. We will make ‘central air’ fields in the both hidden forms. In the first form, the field ‘central air’ will be set value "Yes", and in the second form this field will be set to "No". We will name the forms "Houses with central air" and "Houses without central air" respectively and assign them corresponding paths (/houses/with_ca  and  /houses/wo_ca).

When user clicks on the "Houses with central air" the corresponding form will display. The user will input search criteria to the form and click "Search" button. The "central air" field is never displayed to the user since it is a hidden field. However, since we have given it a value, this field will be included in search criteria together with user defined criteria. Thus only houses with central air will be searched. If user chooses "Houses without central air" form, accordingly the search will be performed only among houses with "central air" field set to "No."

The same method can be applied to any of the database fields.