Metasearch engine review

Nulty

Hi all, I've had to create a meta search engine for a college project and I need to get some user evaluations on it. The evaluation is only 10 yes or no questions (for posterity more than anything).

Will you please try out the search engine and fill out the evaluation form.

these are the queries I want you to run:

atari
the secret garden
defender
appraisals
used car parts

This is the URL for the search engine:
http://nameless-tundra-2579.herokuapp.com/

and this is the evaluation form:
http://nameless-tundra-2579.herokuapp.com/input

CSS is not my forte, time was of the essence and that suffered along with plenty else!

NOTE: Don't use the Entireweb engine for evaluation. They have broken the link to their API in the last two days and I can't change the code because the project has been submitted. Of course I should have coded defensively but I had to learn as much about Information Retreival as possible so I didn't do it properly.

Nulty

I just noticed an error occurring in the production db that wasn't there in development. Fixed now

Nulty

Use whatever queries you want actually, noone is going to know.

Trojan

I think I've just lost 3 minutes I'll never get back.

Edit: OP asked for more info:

Everything about the site failed. I tried searching and I got an error. There were major typos (meatsearch vs metasearch). I tried to fill out the survey and it was broken - claimed I hadn't selected an option for question 8 when I had.

I tried 3 or 4 times and then gave up, and feel that it was a total waste of time.

Nulty

May I remind anyone that reviews the site that it is on a test server that has to initialize when you first access the server so there will be a delay of around 4 or 5 seconds. Thats the server, not the app. Also, the title of the application is a private joke not a typo but I'm not asking you to review the interface per se, mostly just the format and functionality. CSS and design is something I hope never to be in charge of in a professional working environment and I'm sure you'll agree I won't be.

This is not a finished article, this is just what I was able to produce by the deadline.

Thanks!

Nulty

There is a problem with Q8. My dev database and production database are different and there are some compatibility issues I was not aware of.

I don't know what Trojan did but if you untick the Entireweb check box on the first page everything works fine as far as I can see.

As for the form validation (Q8), I'm disabled it so it works now.

Trojan

Ok, slightly less harsh review this time.

Since you were looking for reviews here, I think you should have disabled Entireweb by default, if not removed it as an option completely.

Lots of "please wait..." in the UI.

Giving the lack of UI design, and the broken survey, slow load time and error message I assumed "meatsearch" was a typo error too, and not deliberate. Humour is really hit and miss on the web and normally I don't recommend it even if the target audience is accepting unless you can prep them.

There's no attention paid to user experience to speak of so it's hard to imagine anyone using it.

Hope that feedback is somewhat useful

Nulty

Thanks a lot of doing the review again Trojan. I'm under massive pressure at the moment so I missed some important information in my OP.

I can honestly say that this is no where near finished and most of my time on the project was spent learning about Information Retrieval - a nightmare subject to learn in 4 weeks while trying to build a meat search engine!

Again, your input is highly appreciated!

Nulty

Nulty wrote: »

Thanks a lot of doing the review again Trojan. I'm under massive pressure at the moment so I missed some important information in my OP.

I can honestly say that this is no where near finished and most of my time on the project was spent learning about Information Retrieval - a nightmare subject to learn in 4 weeks while trying to build a meat search engine!

Again, your input is highly appreciated!

Haha. that WAS a typo!:pac: