Even as companies are struggling to overcome the old challenges of numeric faceted filters, designers are innovating interesting new controls with which they can solve those challenges. One such control is the slider, which gives unparalleled power to customers. However, successfully offering this power requires careful UX design in order to avoid potential pitfalls. Again, the following three issues with numeric filters surface most often:
- representing discrete values for aspects as sets of ranges
- emphasizing overconstrained filter states
- being parsimonious with inventory information
Designers’ uninformed use of sliders for filters often exacerbates these issues. In this column, I have presented best practices as well as some novel approaches to help designers overcome these challenges. But there is simply no substitute for empathy and solid qualitative user research.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Numeric Filters: Issues and Best Practices :: UXmatters
via uxmatters.com
