Truncation design solution for a search result with more than 1000 authors

Question

Three things:

1. In recent years, we have seen a steep increase in the number of papers with authors in excess of 50, and a particularly notable spike in reports whose author counts exceed 1,000 and more. Here an example: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2009Natur.460..990A
2. Users can see them right within a SERP. But come one. 1000 authors in a SERP is too much.
3. The users click/tap on the authors name to filter the results (added in the facets)

Hypothesis

• Inline scroll areas. But they cause a myriad of usability issues, and should therefore generally be avoided
• Modal Windows. They are a useful and effective interface widget, but the user need to click on an author to add it as a filter — weird interaction.

Ideas?

Answer 1

Based on the discussion we've had in the comments, I think for the expanded version ALL authors section, you should maybe handle it like a terminal window and do columns spanning the width of the window, cut it off after a certain point with a directive to the user to "see more authors" which could show the next set of authors (or go straight to a paginated solution) - and perhaps a directive to "see all authors", which would display all the authors in columns despite how large the list is. This way you allow the user to control the amount of information that flows to them.

Either way, I think columns of authors sorted alphabetically will be much easier to scan through visually for the user. Having the names displayed inline is too hard on the eye.

I'm providing a screenshot of my terminal window listing the contents of a large directory as it's very easy to scan what's there quickly.

Answer 2

Wow, >1000 authors? This is just a guess, but how about listing the first four authors and adding "et. al."?

"Meteors and Mudslides: An Examination of Some Words that Begin with M." Heatherton, Joyce, James Fitzgilroy, Jackson Hsu, et. al.