computing Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and development of both hardware and software. Computing has scientific, e ...

, delimited search refers to a simple search user interface allowing search in three steps: * First a user types a query string, * second the system computes the query on the whole body of searchable content, * third the user gets results (if they exist) for that query string from the system. This search mode is the default search system implemented in most

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...

word processing A word is a basic element of language that carries an objective or practical meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no consen ...

systems, many online

full-text search In text retrieval, full-text search refers to techniques for searching a single computer-stored document or a collection in a full-text database. Full-text search is distinguished from searches based on metadata or on parts of the original texts ...

interfaces.

Incremental search

The contrary of delimited search is

incremental search In computing, incremental search, hot search, incremental find or real-time suggestions is a user interface interaction method to progressively search for and filter through text. As the user types text, one or more possible matches for the text ...

in which a user gets instant feedback as he/she types a query based on what may exist in the content searched, thereby allowing him/her to adjust the query based on actual coverage of the target content instead of waiting for the system to compute results and possibly returning a "not found" error.

Critique

The renowned interface design guru,

Jef Raskin Jef Raskin (born Jeff Raskin; March 9, 1943 – February 26, 2005) was an American human–computer interface expert best known for conceiving and starting the Macintosh project at Apple in the late 1970s. Early life and education Jef Raskin ...

, defined delimited search and compared it to his more favorite search interface (

). Here are his own words in his famous work, "The Human Interface":

"With a delimited search, the computer waits for the user to type a pattern and delimit it, after which it is the user who waits while the computer does the search. When using a delimited search the user must guess, beforehand, how much of a pattern the computer needs to distinguish the desired target from other, similar targets. With an incremental search, he can tell when he has typed enough to disambiguate the desired instance, because the target appeared on the display. (..) In spite of near agreement about the desirability of incremental searches on the part of both designers and users, almost all interface-building tools make it easy to implement delimited searches and difficult or impossible to implement incremental searches." Read Text on Internet Archive"> Read Text on Internet Archive
/ref>

References

External links

— Programming and Human Factors by Jeff Atwood. User interface techniques {{software-type-stub