Resumé:
Search by icons (pictograms) is faster than by text input. A click on an icon
replaces text input. A single byte represents an icon.
"A picture tells a thousand words". Full-text search can do with
less than that, however, several words connected with AND and OR
might be required.
Advantages uf using icons:
Icons can be created
using fonts containing sprites that can be downloaded from many websites.
Icons are self-explanatory. An ALT text appearing when the cursor moves over an
icon offers additional help.
Icons can be represented by one byte as long as there are less than about
200. If there ar more, icons representing searchable concepts are represented by
1 byte, the rest by 2 bytes. A practical icon size in .GIF format is 45 x 45
pixels. When optimized they are smaller than 1 kB.
A listing taken from the accommodation directory where Findfast is implemented:
Almara
B&B
Closed
23 December - 2 January
226
Collins Avenue West
Whitehall, Dublin 9
County Dublin
Some icons are categorized to distinguish regions, accommodation types,
price ranges, distances from airports and beaches or accommodations sub-types
like No smoking or Smokers welcome.
The 3-dimensional array has fields where sequences of bytes represent icons.
If for instance 1 - 9 represent Regions 1 - 9, D represents price
range D, P represents Pets welcome, p represents No pets, b
represents Bed-and-Breakfast, a search for a B&B in Region 1 in
price range D where pets are not allowed would result in Findfast searching
the array for the string "p1BD". If no such string is found
search is repeated for "p1B" (B&B in Region 1 where pets
are not allowed, any price range). The above listing (price range C) would
be displayed.
Other icons like Church nearby or Car Rental or Coffee Tea
or Pub would not be searchable properties (In Ireland there is always a
church and a pub nearby).
Icons are in use in many content sites, but not used to make an on-site search
engine viewer friendly.
4
Part of the Findfast package:
A program to create listings online or offline
in a standardized format.
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