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I'm playing with millions of records where I fetch 100 records per page with pagination and a search panel to help user if he wants some unique record.

But the questions are:

1: Do I really need to show first 100 records without asking? because user might want the X records which doesn't exist in first 100 records

2: First 100 Records might help if user want to see records on the basis of some criteria

like if I want to see all or 10 students who score >80%.. I click on "student marks>80%" link and I got the list of student, where Max percentage would be on the top. So user will get what he wants.

But in my case I don't have any criteria and I'm not sure what user would be looking for i.e. Does he wants top 10 records? Or details of any specific student.

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So is this more a search or more often used as a list view? And is it desktop or mobile? – Michael Jun 7 '12 at 6:45
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What exactly is your question? Is it 'should I automatically return results before a search has been completed, or should I not display any results until a search has been initialised'? – JonW♦ Jun 7 '12 at 7:34
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I'm sorry but are you sure of what you're trying to achieve with this application? "I don't have any criteria and I'm not sure what user would be looking for", so you have a list of items but you don't know which parameters can be used as filters or which parameters that might be of value to the user? "Does he want top 10 records? or details of any specific student", these are not questions that can be answered here by us. These are questions for the client you're developing for or for the intended user base. We have no idea of what the intention with your application is. Be more specific! – AndroidHustle Jun 7 '12 at 9:40

2 Answers

up vote 1 down vote

1:Do i really need to show first 100 records without asking? because user might want the X records which doesn't exist in first 100 records

2:First 100 Records might help if user want to see records on the basis of some criteria

Asking the user

Your problem here is that you havn't asked your intended audience what they want. If this is in the beginning of your development process, you could organize a workshop with a defined user group. At that workshop you could display your mockups and wireframes and let the users get a feeling of your design thoughts. Immediate feedback is highly appreciated, and you can accomlish a lot in just half a day.

Another method would be to do real usability testing on real users. That could be done with as few as five users, and you'll get the major usability issues from that session. If the users don't fancy 100 records they will tell you.

There are other techniques to involve users such as card sorting, participatory design, interviews and questionnairs, but at this stage I think you really need to meet your users face to face either in a group or one by one. I'm sure they will give you leads, hints and real feedback for you to continue with your soon to be user centered design.

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up vote 0 down vote

Well, you approach is appreciable, but add some filter criteria and 100 records per page is a huge number, may be you should reduce it to 25 or 50. Also, as you suggested provide an option to show X records per page (like 25, 50 100 etc).

Add as many filter tabs to narrow down the search for the User.

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Micheal, it is a list view and for desktop.Meet, 100 is just a number it could be any thing, customizable from admin end not from user end ( it is what client want). But MY question remain unanswered :( – Hem Jun 7 '12 at 7:24
There are some good comments attached to your question, please provide some more information. – Michael Jun 8 '12 at 7:42

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