Add guidance for "Additional search options" to researcher Help

[AlOneill]

The Additional search options are beautifully intuitive once you get going, but we do need to describe their use. The challenge will be to not make them sound more complicated than they actually are!

Perhaps do this in two stages:

1. Something brief to be ready in time for testing and MVP

2. More details and examples when ready

[PhilipClarke712]

There is a draft Advanced search facility help page at https://test3.freebmd.org.uk/cms/help-superseded-or-draft/draft-advanced-search-facilities but it focuses on what BMD1 can offer and almost all of those functions are either not yet available on BMD2, or done in another way, such as using drop-down boxes, not wildcard characters, such as (plus) (+).

Note: it does have a Names section which would need to rewritten from scratch and and a Postems section which might be needed if the beta version goes onto a production server with a full version of the database and a postem search capability is implemented.

[AlOneill]

@PhilipClarke712 This will need to be completely new, using Vino's description and our experience of the new fields.

[AlOneill]

The most obvious problem in describing the partial search options is keeping the terminology consistent for parts of a name. This terminology will need to be explained near the top of the section.

For the purposes of this Help section, I propose that we use use forename for everything that is not part of the surname. We then consider the forename as comprising a given name plus a middle name (or names).

If anyone can see any snags with this particular scheme and can suggest a better one, please say so.

[richpomfret]

No snags spotted. To continue with write-up based on the suggested approach.

[richpomfret]

Is this one for @PhilipClarke712 to continue with?

[AlOneill]

It is not ready to be handed on, yet. It's on my laptop, written in MarkDown. Some bits remain to be translated from developer-speak into something more suitable for users.

[AlOneill]

Have made quite a lot of progress on this story. Was hoping to put the HTML version into Refinery this weekend, but got de-railed by other issues and life.

[richpomfret]

@AlOneill any updates on this one?

[AlOneill]

A first draft of Additional search options is now in Refinery on t3. The final set of options is not edited from the developer's text: making this suitable for a user is the next part of my task.

[AlOneill]

Complete draft of Additional search options is now in Refinery on t3. Still tweaking some of the more awkward text. A few queries to resolve.

[AlOneill]

DRAFT version of Additional search options updated with queries resolved.

Page needs review and checking. Does anyone have better examples for the three sections listed at the top of the page?

[PatReynolds]

Example of finding Contains (Surname) a search for Alex STONE finds Alex STONE, Alexandra STONEY, and Alexis STONESTREET

Example of finding Ends With a search for Mary COLE finds Mary COLE, Mary SEACOLE, and Mary WELLS-COLE Field finds FIELD, OLDFIELD and WAKEFIELD

In Middle Name or Surname [FreeBMD keeps crashing out - will try and answer this one tomorrow]

[AlOneill]

@PatReynolds thank you.

Do you want us to put all surnames in upper-case? Or was that force of habit? Bear in mind that the letter casing of surnames (and first names!) is all over the place in the Index itself and so also in Search Results and Entry Information.

[PatReynolds]

@PatReynolds to specify how the given name(s) and family names(s) should be layed out on this page.

[PatReynolds]

Maybe say "familly names in the examples below where it is important to distinguish given and family names are in bold [or some other distinguishing feature].

Maybe add a video so there is an oral description of these features (maybe it only is relevant for search-by-middle-or-familyname?)

[AlOneill]

@PatReynolds That does not sound accessible to a screen reader user.

[PatReynolds]

Pat to try a text re-write for clarification of the parts of the name in examples.

[PatReynolds]

Would a table be better, or throughout use

First name Jane family name Jones First name Jane family name Jones-Prentice First names Jane Alice family name Jones First names Jane P family name Jones

[PatReynolds]

@PatReynolds to make sure this is the only case where it is needed, so examples are

First names Jane Prentice surname Jones First names Jane surname Prentice Jones

[PatReynolds]

I think middle name/surname searches are the only ones where it would be necessary to identify the name parts with words.

[richpomfret]

Added to documentation meeting to be reviewed/discussed.

[PatReynolds]

Search for Bowes Lyon in surname, 1925, on middle or last name 'other' option. Finds: any first names + surname = Bowes Lyon but not any Bowes Lyon

Is this expected @Vino-S ? I would expect to find only people with the surname Bowes Lyon or Bowes-Lyon, and people with a middle name of Bowes and a surname Lyon.

[richpomfret]

@Vino-S can you take a look when you can?

[Vino-S]

Is this expected @Vino-S ? I would expect to find only people with the surname Bowes Lyon or Bowes-Lyon, and people with a middle name of Bowes and a surname Lyon.

It would find people with surnames Bowes or Lyon and People with Middle Name Bowes or Lyon. However, it will not find Surname Bowes-Lyon

[PatReynolds]

Based on the Genealogy search by Google feature - @PatReynolds to look at that, and write a help based on it.

[PatReynolds]

Can you give me a link to the Google genealogy feature please, @Vino-S

[PatReynolds]

The Google Advanced search engine

[PatReynoldsFUG]

@Vino-S Google Advance search does not have fields for first and last names.

The search you have implemented does not meet the specification. Personally, I can't see that it would be of use to researchers (but happy to be corrected on that).

What IS needed is a search that takes John Lyons Davis and looks for both John Lyons DAVIS and John LYONS DAVIS (first names are lower case, family names are upper case to show the difference, not for how they should be displayed). Taking myself off this now for others to decide the next steps.

[DeniseColbert]

We need info from Vino about the additional search options design- how have you set this up @Vino-S ? Particularly the search by middle name. Additional search options should prevent the need for multiple searches for finding a middle name.

[DeniseColbert]

@richardofsussex to take a look

[richardofsussex]

I find the additional search options design unhelpful: search options for a field are completely separated from the field itself. Also, those options can apply to any one of three fields - but only to one of them in any given search. And if you've used the additional search facility, you have to remember to switch it off again if you modify your search.

In place of the whole additional search options box, I would prefer separate 'options' controls for each search field. For First Name(s), we could have a drop-down, with values "Starts with" (default), "Exact match", "Name in any position", "Contains" and "Ends with". For Last Name it would be "Starts with" (default), "Exact match", "Contains", "Ends with" and "Phonetic search". For Mother's Surname it would be "Starts with" (default), "Exact match", "Contains" and "Ends with".

I don't find the "middle name" concept useful, and the proposal above gets rid of it, while (I think - please check!) retaining all the functionality we currently have. In fact, my proposal gives the user more information, since the fact that searches are "begins with" by default is now explicitly stated.

It is a fact of life that the First Name(s) field contains a mixture of given names, "middle" names and the first half of unhyphenated double surnames. It is also a fact of life that our transcribers will have arbitrarily decided to put either GivenName: "Ralph Vaughan", LastName: "Williams" or GivenName: "Ralph", LastName: "Vaughan Williams". A search for "Vaughan WIlliams" suggests that the first of these strategies is by far the more popular.

The comments above suggest that you would like it to be possible for a single search to find all the Vaughan Williams', using the additional search options in some clever way. My view is that this isn't possible, and we should instead level with our researchers about the nature of the data.

One other comment: the "Middle Name + Exact Match" combination always give a timeout "Search took too long" error instantly.

[DeniseColbert]

Would the drop-down menus fit in the space below the fields?

[DeniseColbert]

Decided that autocomplete in names could solve this issue. As it currently is designed to search via Starts with... it will need further consideration to find names that are not at the beginning of the field.