Firstly this is more of a design / interface type question, so has no right / wrong answer, but I would appreciate peoples opinions on this.
I am creating a comparison site, and I am unsure how to proceed with the search interface. There are going to be lots of fields, and each field will potentially have many values. Some of these fields will condense the values by using a slider, but others will need a checkbox for each value available (as multiple values may be needed).
When you change any field, it will automatically update the results below, and each fields options to show whats left to filter / search.
Now I had originally intended to have the top 5 search fields visible at the top of the page in columns, and limit those fields to the top 5 most frequently occurring values. Each field would have a show more to expand the options, and there would also be a show more fields button to expand the search even more.
When fully expanded, this definitely has the capability to fill a good size screen resolution. Obviously it has the option to minimise the form again, and the results will be shown underneath, but has anyone got any ideas how this can be layed out?
We have toyed with having all the search options in a side bar, but there are so many you would probably have to scroll down a full page height 2 or 3 times to see everything which would get annoying. Clicking the max / minimise button would definitely be easier in my opinion.
A few examples but in reality are not as complicated as what we need are:
http://www.holidaylettings.co.uk/homesearch.asp
Any good examples / ideas?
Ended up just having it have the 5 most important fields, with the less important options hidden, then you can show more options, and show more fields.
Simples 🙂