Search more flexible and user friendly
Summary
Suggested by ralxx
- What could be better: When I search for “fdroid”, no results are found, I really need to type “f-droid”. I think it’d be good if searching becomes a bit more flexile.
When I am searching for “messenger”, I’ll be probably interested in messenger apps such as Whatsapp, Snapchat, Telegram or Facebook Messenger, but the search result show basically only products related to the latter one. It’d be good if searching become a bit more flexile. But maybe the more relevant results will come all alone once many more people are searching and installing apps…
When the user searches for installable apps s/he needs to be precise in order to produce relevant search results. It would be good to improve the search function.
The problem
Steps to reproduce
- Example 1 - F-Droid. When searching for the F-Droid store the search results for "fdroid", "f droid", "fDRoid" or "f-droid" are all very different from each other. Only searching for "f-droid" brings up the desired app store to the top of the list.
- **Example 2 - NewPipe ** When searching for the famous open source YouTube replacement NewPipe it makes a huge difference whether searching for "new pipe" or "newpipe". In the first case a YouTube replacement application is being shown called "NewPipe" that is being developed by WittyTech and comes with numerous trackers and is likely not the app that most users might look for. When searching for "newpipe", the open source YouTube replacement NewPipe (developed by Team NewPipe) comes first in the search results (whereas the WittyTech app shows as 3rd search result). What is a bit annoying with this example: both apps are named "NewPipe" (in the very same spelling) and both apps are featuring an identical app icon.
Fun fact: When searching for the "fdroid" and while typing this search string, App Lounge proposes a number of strings to be searched for, none of them brings the open source app store to the search result (see last screenshot below)
What is the expected correct behavior?
What would be desirable from user perspective:
- a search functionality that is flexible and shows the same results no matter if the user searches for "fdroid", "f droid", "fdro id", "f-droid", "fdro-id", "fDroid" or "fdroId" (being the same even if there are spaces or '-' or capital letters users anywhere in a search string).
- ideally, even if the users searches for a misspelled "fdroide", relevant search results should be displayed.
Reference: https://community.e.foundation/t/app-store-first-feedback/3806