On 02/20/2009 10:12 AM, Bernhard Eversberg wrote:
>> We currently do a comparison match called "do you mean?"
>
> Frankly, I'm appalled! I don't want to have a machine guessing
> what I mean and then address me, as a person, with that kind
> of unsolicited questions!
I was going to go with "Are you a lousy speller, or just a bad typist?"
Maybe I'll rethink that. :-)
As others have pointed out, many users are already used to "Did you
mean..." from Google, Yahoo, and Amazon.
[I don't really understand Amazon's behavior. If I search its music
department for "mendelson" I just get hits for Mendelssohn. But if I
search for "mendelsson" I get "Did you mean Mendelssohn?"]
> What I mean is my business and mine alone. When I make mistakes
> entering search terms, that's my problem and mine to solve,
> using my own intelligence and judgement when looking at inadequate
> results or "zero hits".
The real problem here is if the machine decides it knows better than
you, replaces your search with its suggestion, and doesn't let you
override it.
--
Thomas Dowling
tdowling_at_ohiolink.edu
Received on Sat Feb 21 2009 - 11:41:10 EST