Should I use multiple search inputs or make the user search multiple times?

Question

I am creating a tool where the user can create their own client groups.

I will present them with a list of their clients and they can complete a search to find family members, and then use checkboxes to group them together for submission. Given that family members may have different surnames or addresses I wanted to give multiple search boxes so the user could search: Bob, Smith and 123 East Street, with the results being all bobs, all smiths and all clients at 123 East Street.

example: I want to group a family together.

In this case I want to find everyone who matches: Bob, Smith or 123 East Street.

• Bob Smith 87 Elm Street (found you)
• Jane Smith 123 West street (found you)
• Tanner Tate 123 East Street (phew, found you)
• Tina Tate-Smith 123 East Street (found you)
• Mike Vick 123 East Street (found you)
• Bob Zeppoli 99 Rouge Street (don't need you)

The other option would be to have the user search for bob, check all the applicable boxes, and then complete a new search for Smith and so on. This seems like extra work and not the best experience.

Example

In this example I search for bob:

• Bob Smith 87 Elm Street (found you)

Then smith:

• Jane Smith 123 West street (found you)
• Tanner Tate-Smith 123 East Street (found you)

then 123 East Street:

• Tanner Tate 123 East Street (phew, found you)
• Mike Vick 123 East Street (found you)

Is there another option I am not thinking about or can the multi-search work for my purposes? I would put it in front of a user but I cannot find existing code to through into my prototype.

Answer 1

Approach 1. You can use single search form with chips

This way you can add multiple queries to the same search. After making a couple of queries the results will list all possible clients and then selecting the family group would be available.

However, there could be a ambiguity problem for the user not knowing whether he has queried a name or street because most of the streets are namen upon a person. To solve that, you can use a second approach:

Approach 2. Use 2 search forms.

You could use two search forms one for names and one for streets. This way the problem with the ambiguity should be solved. Again chips should be used to list the queries made by the user.

Use autocompletion for the search, if possible.

Here is an example of autocomplete functionality. This would help for the faster selection of queries.

Answer 2

Staying away from diffcult to comprehend Boolean searches, you might want to look into new kinds of search implementations, like Slack.

Just a basic search field, with extra options inside. But you still need to type three times, but it works really fast and smoothly.

"from: 123" > select and enter "from: Bob" > select and enter "from: Smith" > select and enter

But of course this needs some extra work on implementing it.

Answer 3

As you are having different searches I would keep it in different search fields and results. Adding "or" in the same search can create confusion.

You can display different searches in the same page so the user can see all the results he is getting. Results which conincide in between searches should be displayed in all of them and highlighted somehow (maybe on hover) so the user can understand the result appears several times. At the same time when selecting a repeated element it should be automatically selected in all the results.

Let me know if I didn't get your question correctly.