Design decisions: Making a complicated search form simple to use
Here at coldpie we’re often faced with some tricky design or architectural questions and I thought we’d share one of the recent ones we tackled when building the new Casting Collective website
A big part of the site revolves around the artiste search, which allows casting agents to browse and select artistes based on a number of criteria from basic vital statistics (such as age, height and shoe size) through to more specific skills (such as languages spoken or dancing experience). Agencies can also find artistes who have their own uniform (from police to nurse) or alternatively by artiste name.
What needed fixing
When we reviewed the old website we noted a couple of areas where it could be improved.
The first was that the search start page always showed the same 24 artistes and four in particular always in your eye line. For us this had to go because often those shown would bear no relevance to what agencies would require. Also because the 24 artistes were up front, agencies were likely to notice this small set of artistes first and the search criteria second. With the artistes removed from the start page we could free up some more space for the search form itself – allowing for a little more explanation of what the search was able to do.
The second issue with the old site was that the search functionality was split into 4 separate and distinct searches (with the vital stats form split again into simple and advanced options). This meant, for example, that agencies could only view artistes of a certain age OR those that were trained dancers OR those that could speak French. They couldn’t seek out French speaking trained dancers between 26-40 all in one go – which for a casting agency could be a real need.
Some more things to think about
Once we’d decided to bring the searches together and started on the data manipulation, another set of questions arose. The options available are vast and include:
- 15 vital statistics parameters (gender, age, height, inside-leg, shoe size etc.)
- Over 500 skills split across 8 categories, including 125 languages and 125 sports.
If we weren’t careful the form would be a nightmare to use and if laid out wrong it might stop some agencies in their tracks leading them to go elsewhere.
Conventional wisdom here would probably dictate creating a simple search (with just vital statistics and possibly a name search) with a link through to an advanced search allowing people to search for skills if they needed to. We decided against this though because we wanted to show agencies what they were able to do up-front and allow them to do it quickly and easily.
The first attempt
Our first attempt at a solution was O.K and functional but that was about it. You can see it here: Attempt number 1
We had everything on the page however it wasn’t really hitting all the right buttons in terms of being simple to use. We didn’t want it to look too complicated and unfortunately this just did. If you only wanted to search for men over 60 in this scenario you were also faced with various other options which weren’t relevant and got in your way.
Also we had a problem in that most people didn’t know how to use multiple select boxes and this wasn’t the time to start educating (you need to hold down the shift or the apple key and then select different options to get what you wanted.)
We put our thinking caps on again.
The end result
For those that like to skip to the end and read the last sentence first, here is what we finally ended up with: the end result.
What did these changes gain us?
Simplicity. Agencies are now able to see all of the different search types at a glance and can safely ignore things that aren’t relevant. They can also see that they can mix and match different search options together.
Options are hidden until you need them. So agencies can see all the options and easily switch between different skills in one or two clicks.
Skills grouped more sensibly. Agencies can see more clearly the different ways that skills are grouped and also the internal groupings within those. If you need to see everyone who has a little bit of skill on the old ivories then no problem just do a “select all” in musical instruments under the piano and organ section. Users can now more easily see that they can select multiple skills at once.
Generally a more pleasant experience. Well we think so and The Casting Collective agrees.
And finally…
The next step was to start tracking what people are searching and record that in the back office. In the next few months The Casting Collective should know which things are really important in terms of the online search rather than just guessing based on what they know about their offline business. We’ll decide whether the search needs further tweaking then.
These are the sorts of problems that occupy our minds on a daily basis here at coldpie. The result hopefully is that through our little extra effort, users won’t need to think about how the form works at all.
You can read more about the site build itself here.
Tags: casting-collective, design
