Search
Probably the most overlooked aspect of a website, and the centerpiece of this site. When searches return nothing, it becomes a real source of frustration to users. Structuring a site like CTN with searhing in mind at the begining can save a lot of frustration.
Some rules or proceedures for those who provide content can really assist users in finding RELEVANT pages on this site based on their search.
Legislation is often refferred to by number [HR 1424]. What if a user put in HR1424 without the space or just 1424? How should we handle this type of input? Also returning based on particial matches like just the HR can result in too many results further frustrating users.
One reccommendatiion is the authors also provide categories and meta information that we key off of for searches. With other obvious information like nick names for bills [no child left behind] or [bailout, bail out] along with the names of sponsers of the bills.
So our search should begin with categories that are established by authors of content for this site. Next these same authors should create a list of keywords and meta tags associated with each writing.
As we introduce groups to the tools available on the CTN site we need to also educate them on the importantance of properly 'tagging' thier content. We are seeing this request more and more in the social networking sites. Once a group or activist posts to the blog or wiki or creates their own CTN discussion they will want to show up in search results. We can put up a Tips Section.
