When searching for a plural word, should single variants match?

Question

I'm creating a simple search from image tags and corresponding text from a database.

It has come up that a user has words like cathedral and cathedrals and when visitors search for cathedrals they don't see the cathedral results.

Is it a good idea to try to replace English plural words with single variant in the search query?

Without a dictionary (in some cases even with it) this would change words like Moses to Mos and would match mosquito.

Or bees would be searched as be and match rebel...

Answer 1

Generally, don't make assumptions on a user's intentions when performing a search (or anything else). If a user is looking for multiple 'cats' don't assume that a single 'cat' is good enough to quench the user's lust for feline shenanigans.

There are also a great deal of plurals that would be very difficult for you to adjust to - 'goose' vs. 'geese', for example. If you match some plurals but not others, you will begin to create confusion.

Define a straight forward search logic and stick to it. One suggestion might be:

1. Exact match
2. Partial match, from start ('cathedral' matches 'cathedrals'; 'be' matches 'bee', not 'rebels')
3. Partial match, internal to string ('be' matches 'rebel')

Rank ordering the results based on the above would allow the user to learn the search pattern. Mixing results would make that more difficult. While the above still suffers from 'cathedrals' not matching 'cathedral', the user may likely adjust their search on their own.

If you are still want to guess on plurals, I'd suggest including a "do you want to try" section -- similar to Google's "did you mean" string when you misspell something in your search. This gives the user the ability to quickly just to plurals (or singulars) without cluttering results that may be exactly what they wanted.

Answer 2

Don't change the word in the input field, because then there will be a cognitive disconnect.

What you should do, however, is show the results below and list them in terms of relevance like so:

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Or, what you could do is also have a smart search where it will suggest words. That way you can minimize "wrong searches" like so:

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You can also just do both. They both can work, just make sure to clearly show what you have what they searched. Even a "Did you mean" field could help. Just look at google and try to imitate what they do because they do it right.