Conversation on...Search?

kenneth_rogers
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni

On day two of instcon‌ I stopped by the Community Booth and chatted with the one and only stefaniesanders‌. Yes, she had me create my own mock-up for a new Community home page (Community Home - Submit your own‌), but this lead to some more in depth conversations...about search.

Which Search?

Stefanie's first question to me was which search do I use? Due to  @tdelillo ‌ suggestion when I first started working for her, I only use the search in the top right hand corner (or as Stefanie called it, the Spotlight Search). But did you know that this search not only is on every page - but it is an ultra powerful searching weapon.

Why is it better?

Not only is it on every page, so you aren't constantly having to come back to the Community home page, it also allows you the ability to search specific content, people or places. But there are two other little caveats that are "special" about this search that are nice and I thought everyone should know about (one of which Stefanie taught me!):

  1. You can limit you search to a specific group! (This is what Stefanie taught me!) When you are in your group, or a page in your group, start to search and then click to only show the results in that group!
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  2. Type your search item...then press "Enter". When you do this, you can drill down on your results even further. You can limit the content type (only search in blogs for example), or for a date range ("I know 'x' was created in the last week because it was related to the release notes - where is it!?!"), OR even display only content that has been marked as official.

I know this isn't ground breaking, rocket science, we re-did the equation for gravity in our conversation type work...but this is what can happen at InstructureCon. When you least expect it, you can learn something...and be inspired.