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Keyword search behavior - 9/24/2015 2:27:35 AM

Eric

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I just made a rather small change that potentially can yield a rather significant difference when searching for wines.

When a user is doing a search (global or in their cellar) from the MAIN SEARCH AT THE TOP of the screen in our desktop website, if you pick an exact item from the autocomplete dropdown, we now issue a structured search (using the Wine and sometimes the Vintage parameters) instead of a keyword search. The "Wine" parameter is little used, but it lets you match on an EXACT WINE NAME.

If you are searching for something quite narrow (e.g. "Clos Saint Jean Châteauneuf-du-Pape" or "Château Margaux"), this prevents you from seeing on overly long result set of all the wines that also have those keywords. If you do not pick a specific item from the autocomplete dropdown, then you get the existing, broader keyword search behavior.

This is quite a focused change for now, so that we can play with it.

Items for future consideration:
1) Consider adding this to the ADD NEW WINE and DRINK A WINE searche scopes.
2) Fold something like this into MOBILE as well.

This feature is not going to go back to the Classic site. Autocomplete mechanism there is old, hacky and not easily modified to this new approach.

Enjoy and please let us know what you think!

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-Eric LeVine

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Post #: 1

RE: Keyword search behavior - 9/24/2015 10:05:31 AM

Claw Dee Puss

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I'm not entirely sure I follow this (this is not a new thing, of course, I very often don't).

I tried the example - specifically "Château Margaux" - but "Château Margaux" itself wasn't on the drop-down list (I guess the size of that is limited), so I was unable to pick it from there and had to go on the "broader keyword search" behaviour (not picking anything from the list, I think) - where "Château Margaux" itself was on the second page. Even adding a year (I tried 2010) didn't get the actual "Château Margaux" on the drop down.
I think I'd expected the "narrow" results - "Château Margaux" itself, to be at the top of the drop down so I could easily pick it and go straight there.

I guess I'm not getting it - perhaps you could give an example of a search and indicate what used to happen, and what happens now?

Or maybe I do...?
Is this the difference...?
Previously when I searched for "Santa Vitoria Reserva" the drop down would include "Casa de Santa Vitória Reserva" the actual wine, but when I picked that, I'd still get other wines such as "Casa de Santa Vitória Branco Reserva" and "Casa de Santa Vitória Grande Reserva" - wines that included all the words in my search term, even though I'd used the drop down.
Now when I actually pick "Santa Vitoria Reserva" from the drop down I really only do get that one.

If that's right that's a pretty sizable leap forwards - cool.

(in reply to Eric)

Post #: 2

RE: Keyword search behavior - 9/24/2015 12:12:28 PM

Eric

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Did you actually try it for your Santa Vitoria Reserva example?

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Post #: 3

RE: Keyword search behavior - 9/24/2015 2:39:40 PM

RandyAboutWine

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Thanks for the change, Eric. For me, it's working nicely now.

I have a question about your post, though. You suggestion to use the "Wine" parameter isn't doing what I expected - or I'm misusing the parameter.

While "Margaux grand vin" does bring up a short list that includes Ch. Margaux, using "Ch Margaux /wine" has only two items in the drop-down list:

- 2005 Château Durfort-Vivens The Wine Society's Exhibition Margaux
- 2014 Margaux du Château Margaux (3rd wine)

Rather curious to not see Ch. Margaux itself. But I might be entering the parameter incorrectly.

Also, a bit complex to describe, but when I use the "Back" button to return to the search just performed, the search field is populated with the search *prior* to the search just performed. When I select a line from the drop-down list, the current search criteria are lost.

Finally, your new search is not hooked up to one of the pages. To see the behavior, type "Ch Marguax" (misspelled) and hit Enter or the search button. You go to the "no results" page. From this page, the search field works as it did before the change.

quote:

Consider adding this to the ADD NEW WINE and DRINK A WINE search scopes

Certainly makes sense to me.

(in reply to Eric)

Post #: 4

RE: Keyword search behavior - 9/24/2015 2:43:58 PM

Eric

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WINE is the internal name of the parameter. Searching with /WINE as part of your search string is going to bring up a very limited set of wines...

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Post #: 5

RE: Keyword search behavior - 9/24/2015 3:22:29 PM

RandyAboutWine

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By the nature of things, Margaux, Lafite Rothschild and perhaps others are forever assured to have many results from the global keyword search within "Wines". I can use "Lafite Grand Vin" or "Margaux Grand Vin", but that's not obvious.

A suggestion: add "Producers" to the drop-down button left of the search field, e.g. between Wines and Tasting Notes. It could mimic the behavior of Wines / All Community Wines / Producer / View All, populating the dropdown with the results. That search turns up its own interesting results, as well as solving the "Margaux problem".

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Post #: 6

RE: Keyword search behavior - 9/24/2015 3:26:59 PM

Eric

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Click ADVANCED SEARCH just to the lower right of the search control.

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Post #: 7

RE: Keyword search behavior - 9/24/2015 3:32:18 PM

RandyAboutWine

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Wonderful! Very fine web site... 99. Perhaps 3 digits after a few more years! (forgive me RP)

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Post #: 8

RE: Keyword search behavior - 9/24/2015 3:40:07 PM

Claw Dee Puss

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Eric
Did you actually try it for your Santa Vitoria Reserva example?

I did - the "now" behavior is what actually happened when I tried, the previous behavior is my recollection of what used to (sometimes, quite frustratingly) happen.

(in reply to Eric)

Post #: 9

RE: Keyword search behavior - 9/24/2015 9:07:20 PM

Eric

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Claw Dee Puss

quote:

ORIGINAL: Eric
Did you actually try it for your Santa Vitoria Reserva example?

I did - the "now" behavior is what actually happened when I tried, the previous behavior is my recollection of what used to (sometimes, quite frustratingly) happen.

Your recollection is correct. If you use the keyboard and alter the autocomplete term, then you can get the old style keyword search still.

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-Eric LeVine

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(in reply to Claw Dee Puss)

Post #: 10

RE: Keyword search behavior - 9/25/2015 2:59:31 AM

Eric

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OK, I was in fact able to backport this to the Classic site after all. That said, we have no good way to invalidate script from user's browser cache, so unless you force a refresh you might still be running the old autocomplete code without this fix. No real harm though.

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Post #: 11

RE: Keyword search behavior - 9/26/2015 12:19:27 PM

RandyAboutWine

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quote:

OK, I was in fact able to backport this to the Classic site after all.

Nicely done, thank you.

quote:

This is quite a focused change for now, so that we can play with it.

After a few days with it, I like it a lot and have found no problems - only places where it hasn't been implemented. The "No results" page certainly warrants the change. I just used "Add wine to my cellar" for some 2014 futures, and it isn't clear the change is as important here. Because I enter the vintage along with the wine name, the search finds fewer results. "2014 Lafite" and "2014 Margaux" both showed the chateaux in the dropdown list (sadly those were only tests). "2014 Haut Brion" worked nicely, bringing up a short list including La Mission, which wasn't a test.

For anyone reading this... 2014 La Mission en primeur is $199 at Wine House SF. This is from the 1st Tranche. 2nd Tranche price at The Wine House (LA) is $289. Nuf said.

I did check "Ch. Margaux" using "Add wine to my cellar". Without the vintage, the same large list results. It's a matter of usage. When adding wine to my cellar, I'm always aware of the vintage and enter it, resulting in shorter lists. When searching for wines I might find interesting using the primary search field, I don't enter a vintage. It's likely the new search technique will improve the results in "Add wine...", as well. I'm just reporting my personal findings.

You mentioned that you are considering lengthening the dropdown list to help with some situations. It struck me this morning that if you append a "More results..." to the end of a portion of a large result set, you aren't faced with the unanswerable question of how long the dropdown list should be. Regardless of how many results are found, all could be accessed a block at a time.

(in reply to Eric)

Post #: 12

RE: Keyword search behavior - 9/26/2015 2:14:35 PM

Eric

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I don't understand what it means to integrate this into the no results page. If you are able to see a wine in AutoComplete, then by definition when you pick it you will see a result.

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-Eric LeVine

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Post #: 13

RE: Keyword search behavior - 9/26/2015 2:18:41 PM

RandyAboutWine

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Sorry, this was from having a cached page. F5 cleared up the issue.

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Post #: 14

RE: Keyword search behavior - 9/29/2015 1:04:26 AM

Eric

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From: Seattle, WA
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OK, I just deployed the next big wave. Now this is on the add-wine screen and all other picker/mapper dialogs. I even back-ported the changes to the Classic site. Also, I reworked the autocomplete dropdowns to order by the overall holdings. So now if you start typing "margaux" on the ADD WINE screen, the first match you will see in the autocomplete list is "Château Margaux". Picking that will show you just the one wine. (There is also a toggle to let you expand the search to a traditional keyword search.)

Separately, this heavy reliance exposed the fact that we were a tiny bit glitchy in some cases with composing a wine name that could have two embedded spaces instead of one. (This only impacted about 4,400 wines out of 2 million and 180 producers out of 111,000.) This creates issues, because there is a lot of other code that cleans up multiple embedded whitespace characters, so the net result before my fix was that there were some wines you could pick from the AutoComplete dropdown that would yield no results.) Anyway, those underlying issues are cleaned up as are all of the wines and producers.

Separately, a few days ago I deployed some minor cosmetic changes to make sure that the main search control is properly populated when you do an exact wine search.

This set of changes touched a lot more code. I tested and reviewed very carefully the past two days, but I could definitely have broken something. Let me know if anything seems weird.

Next up, Dan is going to port my changes to the mobile site/app.

_____________________________

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-Eric LeVine

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Post #: 15

RE: Keyword search behavior - 9/29/2015 9:24:55 AM

RandyAboutWine

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This was a creative approach to solving the "Margaux problem." I used it to enter wines from a recent WineBid purchase, as well as a few test cases.

quote:

...the autocomplete dropdowns order by the overall holdings

It usually did well at putting my selection on top of the list. But when it doesn't, it can be hard to find the desired wine because they aren't alphabetical or grouped by producer. For example, I typed Silver Oak. I couldn't find the desired wine (Auction Bordeaux Blend). Items 3-5 were from Twomey, with quite a few more Twomey labels in the top half. I got to the very bottom and saw the Lot 72 variant. I didn't see the one I wanted, so I added Auction to Silver Oak. Then I was able to find it, but neither this nor the Lot 72 were the first entries (a Twomey was second). It's far easier to find something when the list is alphabetical.

Since I knew it was in the list, I went back to just "Silver Oak" as keywords. Then I was able to find it, about 10 from the bottom. I hadn't even noticed it the first pass.

quote:

Let me know if anything seems weird.

IMO it's a mixed blessing. When I pick a popular wine, it's often at the top. When it isn't, searching for it is unnatural and slow compared to alphabetic.

quote:

There is also a toggle to let you expand the search to a traditional keyword search.

I couldn't find this toggle. I checked Advanced Search and my Profile. I would prefer to use it as it was yesterday, but be able to toggle it to this style when necessary.

On a related topic, I entered "2003 Cos" and it properly brought 2003 Ch. Cos d'Estournel to the top. I selected it, which brought up the exact match. It would be nice if the matching vintage was checked automatically in this situation.

Ah, I found the toggle you described, "Show All Matching Wines" in the Add Wine flow. That's nice, not listing Les Pagodes and such. However, it might deserve its own button, as you can't toggle back, nor can you toggle (or even see) Show All Vintages without first toggling Show All Matching Wines.

Now that I understand where you put the toggle, I would very much appreciate a toggle between the display order in the dropdown list. Today's implementation is confusing to visually search. If I can't toggle the display order, I'd pick populating the dropdown list alphabetically as it was yesterday. That was more intuitive and easier to use in all but the special cases. Just one man's opinion.

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Post #: 16

RE: Keyword search behavior - 9/29/2015 11:39:57 AM

periko

Posts: 602
Joined: 10/11/2012
From: Barcelona, Spain
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Eric

I just made a rather small change that potentially can yield a rather significant difference when searching for wines.

When a user is doing a search (global or in their cellar) from the MAIN SEARCH AT THE TOP of the screen in our desktop website, if you pick an exact item from the autocomplete dropdown, we now issue a structured search (using the Wine and sometimes the Vintage parameters) instead of a keyword search. The "Wine" parameter is little used, but it lets you match on an EXACT WINE NAME.

If you are searching for something quite narrow (e.g. "Clos Saint Jean Châteauneuf-du-Pape" or "Château Margaux"), this prevents you from seeing on overly long result set of all the wines that also have those keywords. If you do not pick a specific item from the autocomplete dropdown, then you get the existing, broader keyword search behavior.

This is quite a focused change for now, so that we can play with it.

Items for future consideration:
1) Consider adding this to the ADD NEW WINE and DRINK A WINE searche scopes.
2) Fold something like this into MOBILE as well.

This feature is not going to go back to the Classic site. Autocomplete mechanism there is old, hacky and not easily modified to this new approach.

Enjoy and please let us know what you think!

Eric, this is perfect! The previous search mode was a bit annoying with the amount of results you could get (specially on mobile, smaller screen, read is going to be there too).
Now this is just the perfect search. Thanks!

(in reply to Eric)

Post #: 17

RE: Keyword search behavior - 9/29/2015 12:23:11 PM

Eric

Posts: 17317
Joined: 10/10/2003
From: Seattle, WA
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: RandyAboutWine

This was a creative approach to solving the "Margaux problem." I used it to enter wines from a recent WineBid purchase, as well as a few test cases.

quote:

...the autocomplete dropdowns order by the overall holdings

It usually did well at putting my selection on top of the list. But when it doesn't, it can be hard to find the desired wine because they aren't alphabetical or grouped by producer. For example, I typed Silver Oak. I couldn't find the desired wine (Auction Bordeaux Blend). Items 3-5 were from Twomey, with quite a few more Twomey labels in the top half. I got to the very bottom and saw the Lot 72 variant. I didn't see the one I wanted, so I added Auction to Silver Oak. Then I was able to find it, but neither this nor the Lot 72 were the first entries (a Twomey was second). It's far easier to find something when the list is alphabetical.

Since I knew it was in the list, I went back to just "Silver Oak" as keywords. Then I was able to find it, about 10 from the bottom. I hadn't even noticed it the first pass.

quote:

Let me know if anything seems weird.

IMO it's a mixed blessing. When I pick a popular wine, it's often at the top. When it isn't, searching for it is unnatural and slow compared to alphabetic.

quote:

There is also a toggle to let you expand the search to a traditional keyword search.

I couldn't find this toggle. I checked Advanced Search and my Profile. I would prefer to use it as it was yesterday, but be able to toggle it to this style when necessary.

On a related topic, I entered "2003 Cos" and it properly brought 2003 Ch. Cos d'Estournel to the top. I selected it, which brought up the exact match. It would be nice if the matching vintage was checked automatically in this situation.

Ah, I found the toggle you described, "Show All Matching Wines" in the Add Wine flow. That's nice, not listing Les Pagodes and such. However, it might deserve its own button, as you can't toggle back, nor can you toggle (or even see) Show All Vintages without first toggling Show All Matching Wines.

Now that I understand where you put the toggle, I would very much appreciate a toggle between the display order in the dropdown list. Today's implementation is confusing to visually search. If I can't toggle the display order, I'd pick populating the dropdown list alphabetically as it was yesterday. That was more intuitive and easier to use in all but the special cases. Just one man's opinion.

It is really simple. If you want a broader search, use the arrows keys to select something from the autocomplete dropdown and then use the mouse to click into the search control. You can adjust as you wish or just hit enter to launch a keyword search. As for the rest of your issues, type more specific terms to narrow the list. In general, I cannot give you cake and ice cream at the same time. The list is a fixed size. You cannot pick 50 an then another 50. You cannot sort by frequency and then alphabetically.

BTW, I very intentionally did NOT change the sort order when you are searching your own cellar. There it is alphabetic. Only for the global searches across 2 million wines is it sorted by frequency. Worst case. Type some words and HIT ENTER. You have a sorted list at that point where all wines match the keywords. You have powerful and simple tools to let you narrow this further in mere seconds. There are endless tools to help you narrow it down easily and quickly.

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-Eric LeVine

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(in reply to RandyAboutWine)

Post #: 18

RE: Keyword search behavior - 10/1/2015 4:29:12 PM

dpolivy

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I'm happy to report that the mobile site and app now have the same behavior! Selecting a wine from the autocomplete dropdown will do an exact search on that wine -- this is true whether you're on a traditional search view, or the "Add to My Cellar" or "Drink or Remove" search pages. Like Eric's changes, this touches a bit of code, so please give it a try and let us know if you see anything out of the ordinary.

Dan

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Post #: 19

RE: Keyword search behavior - 10/3/2015 2:05:02 PM

RandyAboutWine

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Ran across an error in the new search. Enter "La Grave a Pomerol" and nothing shows up. Remove the 'a' and the search succeeds.

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Post #: 20

RE: Keyword search behavior - 10/3/2015 2:07:30 PM

Zweder

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Just “Marg” brings up Chateau Margaux on top of the list and “Pou” Chateau Poujeaux as well. Really nice improvement! Thanks!

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Post #: 21

RE: Keyword search behavior - 10/3/2015 2:09:28 PM

Zweder

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quote:

ORIGINAL: RandyAboutWine

Ran across an error in the new search. Enter "La Grave a Pomerol" and nothing shows up. Remove the 'a' and the search succeeds.

Less is more here. If you type "grav pom" it shows up on top of the list ;-)

I already liked the way the search bar works. Just type a few letters of uncommon combinations of words on the label and you almost always find the proper wine. With the new improvement it works even more efficient.

< Message edited by Zweder -- 10/3/2015 2:19:42 PM >

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Post #: 22

RE: Keyword search behavior - 10/3/2015 3:59:35 PM

Eric

Posts: 17317
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From: Seattle, WA
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quote:

ORIGINAL: RandyAboutWine

Ran across an error in the new search. Enter "La Grave a Pomerol" and nothing shows up. Remove the 'a' and the search succeeds.

Incorrect. When I search for "la grave a pomerol" the very first hit is "Château La Grave a Pomerol Trigant de Boisset".

That is the wine. It works. There is no defect.

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Post #: 23

RE: Keyword search behavior - 10/4/2015 3:26:17 AM

Eric

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From: Seattle, WA
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There is always the chance that you were hitting a timeout in the autocomplete results. That doesn't happen very often, but it can. That said, our main motto is always to type less. Zweder has good advice.

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(in reply to Eric)

Post #: 24