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I'm currently working on the global search of a site. When the user submits a search, he can see 3 types of content: company, contact and news. Filter options are available on the left side. I have filters that can be applied to any kind of content (e.g. region) and filters that are relevant to only one kind of content (e.g. company size).

I'm wondering which approach is the best to deal with those 'conditional' filters:

  1. Drill-down approach: when the user selects a content type, additional filters are added and they are only related to that type of content. Example: Amazon.

  2. All filters available at all time: if the user selects a filter that can be applied to only one type of content, the content type will be changed accordingly. Example: LinkedIn.

Filter options

Conditional Filters

Thanks for your help :)

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I'd go with the drilldown approach and only display filters that are applicable to the currently applied filters.

If I understand correctly, the second approach would lead to a reset of the first option. E.g. if a user selects Contact first and then tries to apply the Company size filter would result in changing the content type to Company. This is not only confusing, it's also very frustrating for the user as they have to start all over again.

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  • Yes, you are understanding correctly. Thanks for your response.
    – user25518
    Commented Jul 17, 2014 at 14:12
  • Can you dynamically display the filters related to your category (e.g. All, contact, company, news) So the unrelated filters will simply be hidden when they are not related to your category
    – Leths
    Commented Jul 17, 2014 at 14:29
  • Yes, that's the plan. The filters are updated every time the user ticks a box or choose a content type.
    – user25518
    Commented Jul 18, 2014 at 9:13

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