ARIS - Archive Retrieval Interface Systems (Ideas) — OZONE Asylum, home of the Mad Scientists

ARIS - Archive Retrieval Interface Systems (Ideas)

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Your Text: Insert Slimies » Insert UBB Code » Close Last Tag \| All Tags UBB Help	OK, that's a pretty weird thread title, and you're probably scratching your head right now, wondering what I am talking about. In brief (this is Suho-style brief we're talking about, of course), I've long thought about changing the way I display the archive of entries at [url=http://www.liminality.org/]Liminality[/url]. The longer the chronological list of entries gets, the more useless it becomes. I first contemplated doing the category thing like everyone else, but I had a hard time pigeonholing my entries. So I came up with the idea of topics (this was before the tag meme exploded on the net--not to say that I was anywhere close to the first person to think of this, of course). Displaying categories is easy. You just have a user click on a category link and display all the entries in that category. You could, of course, do the same thing with topics--have the user click on a link and then display all entries that have that topic. With most entries getting multiple topics, though, it would kind of be a waste of the system to just do one topic at a time. Let's say, for example, that a visitor to my site wants to see all of my entries that deal with pickles and windsurfing, but do not address the topic of furry animals. I need an interface to allow the visitor to choose what he or she wants to see. This is where the archive retrieval interface system (ARIS - I just love acronyms, don't you?) comes in. I've been thinking about this for a while, and I've finally decided to put it into motion. Not that this project will be completed any time soon, but I figure if I don't start sometime, it will never get done. Anyway, I currently have four possible ideas for ARISs. Rather than try to explain these ideas, I've done a [url=http://www.liminality.org/asylum/archivetest.html]very messy mockup[/url] of them. Go take a quick look at these (otherwise the rest of the post will make no sense--i.e., even less sense than the first part of the post). This is just a mockup, obviously--none of the forms are functional. Version 1 is the simplest both in terms of implementation and usability (I think). Of course, it is limited, since I have to decide between applying the AND operator or the OR operator universally, depending on whether I want a restrictive search or inclusive search. I'm thinking OR is probably the way to go. Version 2 appeals to the geek in me because it allows the user to choose between AND, OR, and NOT for each and every topic. It provides the most functionality, but it is probably the least usable. I'm concerned that users might not understand how it works, and it is unwieldy both in terms of code and actual use. Version 3 was actually my original idea from way back when. Disadvantages include an artificial limit imposed on the number of possible terms as well as possible confusion with the operators. For example, if the user selects "Topic 1 OR Topic 2 AND Topic 3," do they mean (1 \|\| 2) && 3 or do they mean 1 \|\| (2 && 3)? I could follow the logical order, but the potential for confusion is great. Version 4 is a compromise of sorts. There is still the artificial limit on the number of possible terms, but it might be less confusing than v.3. These examples only show five topics, but the final version will probably have closer to twenty, so that's another thing to keep in mind. Hah! How's that for brief? Anyway, questions, comments, double entendres, etc. are welcome. :) ___________________________ Suho: [url=http://www.liminality.org]www.liminality.org[/url] \| [url=http://www.ozoneasylum.com/4837]Cell 270[/url] \| [url=http://www.ozoneasylum.com/5689]Sig Rotator[/url] \| [url=http://www.ozoneasylum.com/22173]the Fellowship of Sup[/url] [small](Edited by [internallink=2031]Suho1004[/internallink] on 05-18-2005 12:05)[/small] Loading...
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