Minmin Yang & Manpreet Kaur

Executive Summary

This report first reviews the features of the page displaying search results in Connexions competitors' sites. Among them, the search result page of lulu.com does the best job.� In term of content, its search result page displays the title, cover/thumbnail of the item, author, introduction and price of the materials; in term of the function for modifying the search results, it has the options for users to resort the results and to narrow them down. In term of display format, the texts have a good contrast and reasonable font sizes, and the page has a good alignment.

Then the report reviews the current search result page in Connexions. In term of content, it displays the title, category of the item, introduction, date created and revised, and the link to the keywords, author, and similar content.� It has no option for users to modify the search results display. In term of display format, the texts do not have a good contrast, and the font sizes are a bit too small.

A prototype is proposed based on the comparison between the current Connexions search results page and its competitors� pages. The prototype keeps most of the content in current result page. It adds the functions for users to resort and refine the results. It also uses reasonable font sizes and text colors to make the results more readable for the users.

Review of the Pages for Displaying Search Results in Competitors Websites

1. Lulu.com

The major features include:

1. A summary of the number of the results
2. Details of each search result
3. Options for resorting the returned results
4. Options for narrowing down the results

Each returned result includes the following components:

1. Title of the item
2. Cover/thumbnail of the item
3. Author of the item
4. Introduction of the item
5. Price of the item

2. Merlot.org

The major features include:

1. A summary of the categories of the results
2. A summary of the number of the results
3. Details of each search result
4. Options for resorting the returned results
5. Options for doing sub-search

Each returned result includes the following components:

1. Title of the material
2. Category of the item
3. Author of the item
4. Introduction of the item
5. URL of the item
6. Time added to the merlot.org
7. Review of the item

3. MIT OCW

The major features include:

1. A summary of the number of the results
2. Details of each search result
3. Options for resorting the returned results (by relevance / date)

result_img

Each returned result includes the following components:

1. Title of the item
2. Document format of the item (only divided to PDF and non-PDF)
3. Introduction of the item
4. URL of the material
5. Date created

The Current Page for Displaying Search Results in Connexions

The current page for displaying search results in Connexions is shown below.

The major features include:

1. A summary of the number of the results
2. Details of each search result
3. The time the search takes

result_img

Each returned result includes the following components:

1. Title of the item
2. Type of the item (indicating by icons)
3. Introduction of the item
4. Date created and revised
5. The links to authors, keywords, similar content

Proposed Prototype for Connexions Search Results Page

Based on the review of the competitors� websites, a prototype has been designed for the Connexions search results page.

The initial returned page is shown in the figure below. Only four results are shown on this page.

The major features include:

1. A summary of the number of the results
2. Details of each search result
3. Option for resorting the search results
4. Option for refining the search
5. Option for doing MathML search
6. Option for jumping to a specific result page if there are more than one result pages
7. Ten results are shown per page if there are more than ten returned results.
8. Keywords shown as bold.

Each returned result includes the following components:

1. Title of the item. The title has a hyper link taking the users to the particular content material.
2. Type of the item. In this prototype, it uses words in brackets to indicate the type. It can also use icons to serve this purpose. However, there are two issues about using icons in the results: first, it requires some instructions to tell users what the icons represent for; second, once Connexions has more than two types of content, it will be demanding for users to remember the different types of icons at the same time.
3. Author�s name(s). In case there are more than three authors, only the first three authors will be displayed.
4. Date created and date revised. If the date when the item was created is not available for most items, it can be dropped.
5. Rating and reviews. These two functions are not available now, but we designed this for future.
6. Brief introduction or extraction of the content is displayed in a snipped format.

The following figure shows the interface when users click on the �Refine Search� button.

From this expanded page, users can refine the search by using the options provided in the advanced search. For instance, if a user refines the search by putting "John Doe" in the author name, the returned result page will be as follows: