College Course Search

Mort · 21 Apr 2008 at 17:28

Hey all

Am having to do a search function for a college site I am building. Anyways the DB table has an absolute shed load of fields, so obviously I plan there to be a simple and advanced search.

Anyways does anyone know any college websites with a particularly intuitive search function?

Was thinking something along the lines of how e-commerce stores filter out products etc by listing all the fields in a table, with each option off to the side. Sorta like the one on .... something that rhymes with crabs.com, competitor so I cant link

RockLobster · 21 Apr 2008 at 23:06

Searching courses or website?

Mort · 22 Apr 2008 at 13:13

courses, just from looking at a few different college websites there seem to be a lot of different methods to searching

RockLobster · 22 Apr 2008 at 23:04

Our site there's one search box but it searches multiple fields. Users can also select a subject from a dropdown box and it will list all the courses associated with that subject. Best to keep it simple I find multiple criteria for searching is a pain and confusing.

adam83 · 23 Apr 2008 at 12:46

I concur, one form field is much easier and from experience find users predominantly go for the easy route. Keep things simple, and allow further filters in the search results.

I run a property portal, from the first page there is a small form for the user to enter (along with an 'advanced search' feature) once the results (using a FULLTEXT search via MY SQL) have been pulled we give more options for the user to filter the results (using javascript).