I have a scenario where users can search for a particular hotel and add it to their private list. Up until now the search was performed on the hotel name, but now there is a request to also search hotels by ID. This is how the UI looks now:
To keep things simple, I was considering using the same searchbox and labeling it "Search by name or id", which would return the following results:
Now the thing is, in the above example if a user types in 26A5C they will normally get a list with results that match one if these cases:
- Have the ID containing the 26A5C sequence
- Have the "26A5C" string in the hotel name (E.g. "Bellisimo 26A5C Resort")
But if the user types in "26A5C Bella" then what would they expect to see? Would they expect to see:
- All hotels with an ID starting with 26A5C and a name starting with "Bella"?
- All hotels containing the "26A5C" and "Bella" strings in their name?
- Both of the above (see next wireframe)
From a technical point of view it's harder for the development team to implement the single searchbox feature. It would be easier for them to implement two separate searchboxes with separate result lists: one for hotel IDs and one for hotel names. So the options I have now are the following:
- Single searchbox for both hotel name and ID (harder to implement, better UX)
- Two searchboxes: one for hotel ID and one for hotel name (easier to implement, cluttered UI)
- Single searchbox with two radio controls for the user to pick the search type: hotel ID or name (less cleaner UI than #2 but same development time as #2, but an extra click for the user)
Given the situation described above, what would you think is the best approach? Are there any other options besides those I mentioned? Thanks for the help!