Posts in December 19, 2020

Some database search interfaces will return results for Bill, Will, Billy, and William when “William” is the actual search term–as long as the user indicates they do not want an “exact” search. In a similar fashion, Maggie and Margaret will be returned when “Margaret” is entered, a search for Elizabeth will bring up the variants on that name, and so on. Some sites preform searches in this manner by default and if the user wants to only find William–then the website needs to be told to perform an exact search only. Some sites do not offer this flexibility at all. One of my favorite newspaper sites does not automatically find Sam when Samuel is entered as the search term and there’s no magic “inexact” button to hit to […]