I am trying to figure out what the best UX would be for a slider filter. The slider is used to filter a list of companies based on a desired loan amount on a personal loan list page.
Currently, every filter is set at null and gets excluded until it is chosen. The null minimum value is shown as 0 at the left side of the filter.
My concern is that we are introducing data points into the filter that aren’t functional. I feel like it should only allow you to filter by min and max values of the data set. Otherwise it causes confusion to the end user.
Hypothetically, what if we are talking about home loans and the minimum loan from any company in the database is $100k. Are we causing confusion to the user by allowing them to filter from $0 to $100k when there are no values to output?
The other thing is that NULL != 0. By showing zero there we are not being true to what is actually going on.
In an ideal world I feel like all of these would be populated by the min/max values available in the data.
On the other end of the debate is that sometimes people want to see no results as a result set. The thought being "oh okay, most companies don't offer less than a $100k loan." To some, that would be a valuable piece of information.
The question is do users always want a result set that is guaranteed to contain results?
And if we do want them to go all the way to zero, is having the min value labeled "0" confusing? Again, because 0 != null != a value.
Currently the minimum of a slider can be above zero, but keep in mind we also use the lowest point on the slider as the reset point. Whether that value is zero or 1,000 it still causes confusion. The functionality is that is acts as a reset (specifically it resets just that one filter, meaning it excludes results). But the user might not know whether they are resetting the filter or choosing that specific low value.