Choosing from many Options

[Vernma]

I have a large database application which presents oil and gas industry information about gas company systems.

It's purpose is to allow a gas company operator compare their system from the 1000's of other gas companies in the US.

There are as many as 200+ possible filters into this data which might be categorized in up to 20 different categories. Most are numeric and would allow entry of min and max limits.

Any suggestions as to a paradigm for presenting all of these filters in a reasonable fashion? I would probably have them choose the filters they want and then have them enter their settings for those chosen.

The app might also be used from mobile devices.

So many filters, so little real estate.

TIA.

Vernon

[Oscar Merida]

Use apache solr to index and query the data, use facets to manage the presentation of filters. This would work well particularly if your filters are dependent on each other.

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[William Hurley]

You might also want to look at ElasticSearch. It has some neat features like rivers and percolate that Solr doesn't have. AWS also has a pretty decent managed service for it if you don't want to install it yourself.

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[Samantha Quinones]

I have to second Elasticsearch. You can get all the same functionality as solr through indexes and index aliases, plus a lot of features that solr lacks. :)

S

[Oscar Merida]

Sounds like I/We need a talk on elasticsearch

[William Hurley]

Depending on your schedule I can volunteer to give one.

[Andrew Cassell]

If you are looking for user interface suggestions kayak.com has always been one of the best sites (in my opinion) at presenting a complex set of filters on both desktop and mobile (the site isn't responsive but it's easy enough make a responsive version by combining the two designs). They do a nice job of simplifying the criteria and hiding more complex options.

Personally, I would try to avoid complex filtering unless your users are "power users". I think people find it easier if you lead them down a path asking one question at a time (what would be your filter options) and then they land at their destination with the data they are expecting. If you can build a "dashboard" where they can be taken to the most common filter options that's another good option. Otherwise, they land on a page with a bunch of data that they don't care about and then they have to try and figure out how to interact with a complex filter.

One other important bit of advice: if you make your filtering reload the data with javascript make sure you update the URL as people will send links to the results page and wonder why the link they click on doesn't have the right data.

[Vernma]

Thanks to all. It seems I sparked interest in a different topic.

I'm mostly interested in the client presentation rather than the back end management. Solr is a great product but I already have that part worked out.

I'll look at Kayak and leave Elasticsearch to you all.

Thank you; much appreciated.

Vernon

[Samantha Quinones]

That would be fantastic. :) Let's talk!

S

[Sandy Smith]

Amazon is another good model, especially for the desktop version. Remember that most people can only keep 5-9 options in mind at once, though if presented a large list they can select from them if that’s the only task they have.

This might actually be a good question for a UX group. Not sure if NoVA UX has a mailing list or allows messages on their forum, but that’s a place to look. They’re on Meetup.

-Sandy

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