Suggest Integration Best Practices
The purpose of this section is to provide suggestions and ideas on how to integrate the FactFinder NG Suggest module. The items below are hints and intended to explain the possibilities you have for implementation. Depending on your shop and sector, some of the items below may be irrelevant.
Examples
Usability
Enable multiple suggest selection
The customer should be able to pick the desired suggestion from the list, by either using the mouse or using the arrow keys on the keyboard.
Highlight the current selection
The current selection should be highlighted, for example by using a contrasting colour.
Avoid large data loads
It is important that suggestions are displayed quickly. In addition, users should not have to search through a lot of suggestions.
Highlight the initial search term
In order for the user to see why a given suggestion is being made, we recommend you highlight the term entered if it is also in the suggestion.
Offer autocomplete
To assist the customer even further, you can offer the best matching entry as an autocomplete option. Typically, users simply press the tab key to accept the suggestion and enter it into the search box.
Design
Use a unified colour scheme
The shop colour scheme should be replicated in the Suggest box so as to provide a consistent image.
Avoid spaces between elements
There should be as little space as possible between the search term box and the start of the suggestions list. The two should be aligned.
Function
Preview Images
If your shop has meaningful images, we recommend you display these in the suggestions list. Normally you should use the first product image for the associated search results, but if you have access to brand logos, you can enter these using the whitelist. Note that the suggest list will grow in size due to the use of images, and you may be able to display fewer suggestions as a result.
Suggest meta content
If you are also using the NG's Campaign Manager module, you can forward users to content pages (such as terms and conditions, legal disclaimers, catalogue order pages) when they enter certain search terms. If you want these search terms to appear in the suggestions list despite a lack of relevance to the products, you can add them via the associated whitelist.
Forward to detail pages or automatic restriction
By default, when a suggestion is selected a search query for that suggestion is dispatched. If you opt to display product names in the suggestions list, it may make sense to link directly to the product details page when such a suggestion is selected. Equally, if a category or brand suggestion is selected, you could forward the user directly to a landing page or display a prefiltered result page.
These options are implemented by default in the block response. If you want to implement them in a different response variant, please talk to your Omikron account manager.