Feedback Request: Default to AND or OR in Local Help Search

The VS Help team is looking for feedback wrt a last minute default setting.  Anyway, here is the feedback request:

We’re making some last-minute decisions about the behavior of the local search engine for Visual Studio’s local MSDN search engine.   We’re need to decide how to behave when you search for multiple terms, like “VB database connect access”. Here are the options:

Option #1: Visual Studio Local Search should put an implicit AND between all terms, so “VB database connect access” becomes “VB AND database AND connect AND access”.  This means if a page has three but not all 4 of the terms you specify, it won’t show up in search results at all.

Options #2: Visual Studio Local Search should put an implicit OR between all terms, making “VB database connect access” into “VB OR database OR connect OR access”.  This means that pages with all terms matching will usually (though not always due to quirks in the local search engine) show up near the top of the list, but other results which match fewer terms will also show up in search results too.

Regardless of what option is chosen, you’ll be able to override by using an explicit OR or AND in your search queries; our choice is simply what to do by default. 

Which option do you prefer, and why?

Comments

• Anonymous
  July 14, 2005
  The VS 2005 help team is looking for some last minute default setting feedback.  Click here to sound...

• Anonymous
  July 14, 2005
  Option #1, please, this is the expected behaviour of so many search engines.

• Anonymous
  July 14, 2005
  "AND" them together.
  I think most tech. people put in precise keywords and therefore are expecting an "AND" search.
  
  Thanks for asking.
  
  

• Anonymous
  July 14, 2005
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  July 14, 2005
  Option #1, please.
  
  I think 'and' searches are far more common for me! I can't think of the last time I wanted to do an 'or' search in documentation.

• Anonymous
  July 14, 2005
  Why not do both but put AND results at the top of the list as more relevant?
  Or run an AND by default but revert to OR if no results are found.

• Anonymous
  July 14, 2005
  Option #1, please.
  
  The more specific I get with terms, the more specific I want with results.

• Anonymous
  July 14, 2005
  Option #1 Please.

• Anonymous
  July 14, 2005
  Like the others I agree, option 1.
  
  Most people expect the results to be ANDed together. Nothing worse than working with a Search Engine that defaults to OR.
  
  

• Anonymous
  July 14, 2005
  Option 1: I'd expect it to AND my terms. Thanks for checking!

• Anonymous
  July 14, 2005
  Do what Google does.

• Anonymous
  July 14, 2005
  And, definitely.
  
  If you don't know the right syntax for AND and OR, or whether the search engine in question supports them at all, you can still get the functionality of an OR by doing multiple queries. But you can't replicate an AND with only ORs.

• Anonymous
  July 14, 2005
  I agree with the suggestion to do what Google (or MSNSearch) does. To be honest, these are the searches that people are most familiar with, so whatever they do is ehat we are all used to.

• Anonymous
  July 14, 2005
  I think Option #1 feels more natural and is what most people would expect. This is the default for Google searches as well.

• Anonymous
  July 14, 2005
  Option 1. You'd be insane to do anything else. I mean, really. Insane.

• Anonymous
  July 14, 2005
  I think AND is the option that most people are going to assume.

• Anonymous
  July 14, 2005
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  July 14, 2005
  AND please. Same reasons everyone else is saying.
  

• Anonymous
  July 14, 2005
  Option #1 is more consistent across searching tools, so I recommend using that paradigm.

• Anonymous
  July 14, 2005
  Option 1.

• Anonymous
  July 14, 2005
  Option #1 , that is the expecte default behaviou of most search engines, even if someone else prefer the other way !
  
  Regards,
  Tadeu C. Maia Junior.

• Anonymous
  July 14, 2005
  Option #1 is preferable. I'm often searching for content in a topic where I know all the words appear.
  
  If there are no results, you could offer "Try an OR search?"
  
  Ken
  MVP [ASP.NET]
  

• Anonymous
  July 14, 2005
  And me to the list.
  
  Even if someone ever had the idea that implicit Or might yield useful results, surely 10 minutes with just about any search engine would teach them that implicit Or is useless.

• Anonymous
  July 14, 2005
  AND.
  
  After all, when i (or for that matter any developer) type "VB database connect access", i am expecting smaller set of results. Not maybe 1000 pages about VB + 900 pages about database +...., most of them unrelated to my search. Yes, there may be page ranking, and whatever, but the result count will look intimidating.

• Anonymous
  July 14, 2005
  AND please! Most searches that I do are keyword style searches, where I'm looking for all matching words. OR searches are actually quite rare.

• Anonymous
  July 14, 2005
  AND - I won't repeat the reasons (All of the above).

• Anonymous
  July 14, 2005
  Option 1 - although I tend to use NEAR more than either AND or OR.

• Anonymous
  July 14, 2005
  It should default to "AND" searches...

• Anonymous
  July 14, 2005
  I can't believe this is even being asked. If there were enough resources or time, you'd want them sorted by relevancy. The local search will end up not even being used if it is just and and search and the same information is on Google. Hasn't this been the experience of almost any other serious Visual Studio developer? Google provides the results you want at the top of your search, not is a random order of ones that included your terms...

• Anonymous
  July 14, 2005
  #1 :)

• Anonymous
  July 14, 2005
  "AND"

• Anonymous
  July 14, 2005
  "AND" please, that's logical behaviour for every search engine I know and trust.

• Anonymous
  July 14, 2005
  AND agrees with Fred.
  

• Anonymous
  July 14, 2005
  query: a b c
  
  should sort the results such that first are the matches with all of the terms, and if there's less than x matches with all terms then give something close to that perhaps (first a NEAR match then dropping the terms descending by their length?).
  
  query: a,b,c could be same as a AND b AND c if the , is ignored otherwise, and only give results with all the terms.
  
  "a,b,c" would find exactly that of course.
  

• Anonymous
  July 14, 2005
  Not really relevant any more, but definately AND. I agree with all the reasons given above, including that it would in fact be slightly silly to even consider making it default to OR. Except maybe as in one of the suggestions above: default to OR if AND yeild 0 results? (Maybe mentioning that this different default behavior has been used and what triggered it.)

• Anonymous
  July 14, 2005
  I agree with other comments, but for me option #2 seems to be better (OR)
  I think it's better to sort in results than resume a few searches because of missing results.
  And also, if the search was not correctly made, the "OR" option might give the opportunity to propose the good result.
  
  ... Just my opinion... ;-)

• Anonymous
  July 14, 2005
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  July 14, 2005
  Definitely shoudl default to AND. Normally when I am searching for something I know what I am looking for.
  
  And the best argument... OR is one letter shorter then AND so it's quicker to type OR explicitly then it is to write AND.

• Anonymous
  July 14, 2005
  Definitely shoudl default to AND. Normally when I am searching for something I know what I am looking for.
  
  And the best argument... OR is one letter shorter then AND so it's quicker to type OR explicitly then it is to write AND.

• Anonymous
  July 15, 2005
  +1 to AND. I most always want to search for an entire phrase, not search for hits anywhere in a list of keywords.

• Anonymous
  July 15, 2005
  Option one
  I am capable of refining my search if I do not get what I want, I know when I search too precise but sometimes I am looking for something specific

• Anonymous
  July 15, 2005
  Option 1

• Anonymous
  July 15, 2005
  AND, of course.

• Anonymous
  July 15, 2005
  Only AND makes sense :]

• Anonymous
  July 15, 2005
  I would prefer option #1.
  
  regards simon

• Anonymous
  July 15, 2005
  AND, for the love of all that's holy, AND. Nothing's more irritating than having to dig through irrelevant results because of OR searches.

• Anonymous
  July 15, 2005
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  July 15, 2005
  Definitely AND. I almost never use an OR search, except for job searches ;-).
  

• Anonymous
  July 15, 2005
  AND (if you still have any doubts)

• Anonymous
  July 15, 2005
  How about just embed MSN Desktop Search engine into the help... :-)
  
  They just released their API... Maybe this will solve everyone's problems... :-D
  
  However if that is too tough this late in the game, I vote #1 as well. It just seems to be more natural that if you are doing a search on a statement, that AND is the prefered method.

• Anonymous
  July 16, 2005
  AND (actually, NEAR). The problem with OR is that as you add keywords your search gets broader, not narrower.
  
  I'd also love to see a smart search that checks for phrases first, then the keywords NEAR each other, then AND.

• Anonymous
  July 18, 2005
  Option #1. AND of course. OR? Who the heck uses OR for searching? Searching is only useful if it narrows the results down.

• Anonymous
  July 18, 2005
  And - because that's what all the internet search engines do.

• Anonymous
  July 18, 2005
  AND
  I'd actually prefer it search for NEAR. Why? 99% of the time I'm typing in a phrase to search for not several words to AND / OR on.

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  May 29, 2009
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  May 31, 2009
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  June 16, 2009
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