4 ms·

Can you please give us "grep -v" or inverse search: allow us to enable filters which find everything that doesn't contain such a property. This is a horrible om

Can you please give us "grep -v" or inverse search: allow us to enable filters which find everything that doesn't contain such a property. This is a horrible omission in so many search/filter interfaces.

adrianmonk 3y ago
Also, give me the ability to find nulls. Call it "other" or "unknown" if that's more accessible to normal people. In an ideal world, every product listing would have all relevant fields populated (and with correct values). In the real world, practically all databases have errors. For example, my grocery store's soda category: https://www.heb.com/category/shop/beverages/soda/490015/490043 https://www.heb.com/category/shop/beverages/soda/490015/4900... There are 419 results. On the left, the Package filter has Bottle (168 results) and Can (139 results), which totals 307. All 419 products actually are bottles or cans, so 112 products just don't have the data. If you filter, they will be missing.
- Phelinofist 3y ago
  Access Denied Error 16 www.heb.com 2023-08-27 20:42:09 UTC What happened? This request was blocked by our security service Incident ID: 1309001730138387928-244354802817772362
- emmanueloga_ 3y ago
  Yes, yes and yes. When the filter for a given property is set to a value, but an specific item has a null for that property, the correct thing is to match the item (since it is unknown, it is wrong to assume the value doesn't match!). I would even prefer two result groups: matching filters and "maybe matching filters". But most faceted search engines just filter out items when properties may or may not match a property.
ovao 3y ago
Getting the UI for that right seems like the real trick. We have checkboxes and radio buttons that are well-understood to give us the thing(s) that are selected or checked, but we don’t have anti-checkboxes.
- NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
  In truth, it's something that the majority of people will never feel the need to use. So it could realistically be hidden/unlocked upon request. In fact, it would probably be better UX/UI to have it as a directive in an Advanced Search interface.
- kjkjadksj 3y ago
  Just have boolean operators and a little tooltip how to write them. Abstraction here isn’t needed. You have to learn the ux anyhow, may as well have the users learn boolean operators so you don’t have to bother with a ux that might end up not being that optimal in the end.
  - ovao 3y ago
    > You have to learn the ux anyhow, may as well have the users learn boolean operators This seems like a bit much to ask considering the context, and especially considering “optimal UX” is an untenable proposition to begin with.
- SpaghettiCthulu 3y ago
  We actually do. Thanks to the "indeterminate" state on HTML checkboxes (that one where it's sort of filled in instead of checked), you can use unchecked for "exclude" or "must not have", indeterminate for "don't care" or "both" and checked for "include" or "must have". Unfortunately, in typical browsers there is no way for the user to set them back to indeterminate unless the developer implements that using javascript.
  - ovao 3y ago
    An interesting suggestion, but ‘indeterminate’ maps to nullish values, not to negative values. If you have options such as “oak”, “teak” and “walnut”, and there are some options outside of those, how do you allow users to select neither oak, teak or walnut? It’s not through selecting one or all as indeterminate — it’s gotta be through some other mechanism.
- 3y ago

adrianmonk 3y ago

Also, give me the ability to find nulls. Call it "other" or "unknown" if that's more accessible to normal people. In an ideal world, every product listing would have all relevant fields populated (and with correct values). In the real world, practically all databases have errors. For example, my grocery store's soda category: https://www.heb.com/category/shop/beverages/soda/490015/490043 https://www.heb.com/category/shop/beverages/soda/490015/4900... There are 419 results. On the left, the Package filter has Bottle (168 results) and Can (139 results), which totals 307. All 419 products actually are bottles or cans, so 112 products just don't have the data. If you filter, they will be missing.

Phelinofist 3y ago
Access Denied Error 16 www.heb.com 2023-08-27 20:42:09 UTC What happened? This request was blocked by our security service Incident ID: 1309001730138387928-244354802817772362
emmanueloga_ 3y ago
Yes, yes and yes. When the filter for a given property is set to a value, but an specific item has a null for that property, the correct thing is to match the item (since it is unknown, it is wrong to assume the value doesn't match!). I would even prefer two result groups: matching filters and "maybe matching filters". But most faceted search engines just filter out items when properties may or may not match a property.

ovao 3y ago

Getting the UI for that right seems like the real trick. We have checkboxes and radio buttons that are well-understood to give us the thing(s) that are selected or checked, but we don’t have anti-checkboxes.

NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
In truth, it's something that the majority of people will never feel the need to use. So it could realistically be hidden/unlocked upon request. In fact, it would probably be better UX/UI to have it as a directive in an Advanced Search interface.
kjkjadksj 3y ago
Just have boolean operators and a little tooltip how to write them. Abstraction here isn’t needed. You have to learn the ux anyhow, may as well have the users learn boolean operators so you don’t have to bother with a ux that might end up not being that optimal in the end.
- ovao 3y ago
  > You have to learn the ux anyhow, may as well have the users learn boolean operators This seems like a bit much to ask considering the context, and especially considering “optimal UX” is an untenable proposition to begin with.
SpaghettiCthulu 3y ago
We actually do. Thanks to the "indeterminate" state on HTML checkboxes (that one where it's sort of filled in instead of checked), you can use unchecked for "exclude" or "must not have", indeterminate for "don't care" or "both" and checked for "include" or "must have". Unfortunately, in typical browsers there is no way for the user to set them back to indeterminate unless the developer implements that using javascript.
- ovao 3y ago
  An interesting suggestion, but ‘indeterminate’ maps to nullish values, not to negative values. If you have options such as “oak”, “teak” and “walnut”, and there are some options outside of those, how do you allow users to select neither oak, teak or walnut? It’s not through selecting one or all as indeterminate — it’s gotta be through some other mechanism.
3y ago