A single page with, say, sixty names will load up in far less time than repeating the load
scroll click cycle six times over, especially once one takes into account the time required
to establish a connection to the webserver and then render each page in the browser at the
other end. Lastly, a single HTTP request and corresponding database query is far simpler
for the server to handle than six individual ones.
3.4.2 Sort by column
By default, the system would still the results by business name, but the user should have
the option to arrange the results according to the columns of the tabular data, so as to be
able to group the rows into meaningful clusters.
The titles of each column will then be links through which the user can sort the data.
Arranging the results alphabetically by name should still be the default setting, for the
want of any better criteria. It also makes sense to allow the user to group the businesses
together by town the most sensible geographical delimiter, since counties are too big
and streets are too small an area to be useful. By the same token, grouping the rows
together by area code is also a potentially useful option. If, for example, a user in Fermoy
(025) wants to see if it is worthwhile making a trip to Youghal (024) or Macroom (026)
to buy a used car, he or she can scan through all of the dealers outside of his or her area
much more easily if they are grouped together.
3.4.3 Expanding the search
A user cannot be expected to know the likelihood of finding a chauffer hire firm in the
Dingle area, and it could be that there are none. Although there would be an option in the
search form to search within a certain area code and its surrounding areas, the probability
is that most users would only go for the latter option if the former yields nothing useful.
Therefore, it should be made as simple as possible for the user to expand a search within
a particular area code or Dublin 3 digit prefix to include the adjacent area codes after
the initial search has been performed.
3.4.4 Filtering the search results
If a long list of results is returned and the user wishes to refine the search to only show
those from a particular town, they should be able to click on the name of any town in the
results table to only see businesses from that town.
21