Re: Designing a Very Specific Web Interface

[Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- jci -dot- com]

Well, were it me, I'd trot myself down to Virginia Systems, buy and install
Sonar on the server, and walk away with a job well done. but though it's
cheap and easy you say you don't want full text searches (though I'm dying
to understand why a good boolean full-text relevance-ranked search is worse
than a keyword search I'll accept that it isn't wanted) and prefer to spend
time rather than money.

>Do any of you have suggestions for designing search engine-like
>web pages?

The best way to design a page that looks like X is to look at X. There's no
simpler way than to "view source" on the pages you like and want to
emulate.

>Other than simply looking at how other search engines are designed?

Why would you *not* want to do that?

> Or would it make more sense to design a more application-like
>interface with the criteria listed in drop-down boxes and with
>fields for entering specific information? (FYI, we will build
>the interface, not purchase a search engine to run against our
>database.)

Building from scratch is nearly always more expensive and time-consuming
than adapting something which already exists.

This project seems to be closely tied to your database, so I'd recommend
contacting your database vendor for refernces to sites which use their
database as a back-end; if none do, that is also valuable information. They
may even have shipped you some web-based demos that are locked up back in
your system group somewhere. You can get a feel for what is possible given
the limitations of that tool from viewing the real-world and sample sites,
and get a better feel for what works and what doesn't. Blend together the
best of the techniques you find.

Remember, if you steal from one source, it's plagiarism; if you steal from
several, it's research. ;{>}

Have fun,
Arlen
Chief Managing Director In Charge, Department of Redundancy Department
DNRC 224

Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- JCI -dot- Com
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