Text searching behaviour non-intuitive to end users
We're trying to implement a Web Map that allows users to search for buildings by name, however we can't quite get it working as we think a 'normal' user would expect.
Our dataset is a simple polygon dataset of libraries, which has a Text field called 'name' that is configured in the web map for searching. Some of the libraries have characters/words that cause problems, some examples below:
- Betty and Gordon Moore Library
- Gonville & Caius College Library and Archives
- The Old Library
- St John's College Library
- Bartlam Library / Quarry Whitehouse Auditorium
- Block G, Library
In the Web Map, you can configure searching as either a Contains search or an Equals search:
On the underlying 'LibrariesSearchTest' hosted feature layer the Full text index has been built for the 'name' attribute (this was created automatically):
The problem we have is that some words/characters seem to prevent the search function from working. Some examples below of the terms entered in to the search box and the outcome when the map was configured to do a Contains search and an Equals search:
| Search term | Contains Search | Equals Search |
| betty | works | works |
| betty and | doesn't work (no results found) | works |
| betty gordon | works | doesn't work (no results found) |
| library betty | works | doesn't work (no results found) |
| gonville | works | works |
| gonville & | doesn't work (no results found) | works |
| old lib | works | doesn't work (no results found) |
| the old | doesn't work (no results found) | works |
| st john | works | works |
| john | works | doesn't work (no results found) |
| john's | doesn't work (no results found) | doesn't work (no results found) |
| st john's | doesn't work (no results found) | works |
| st johns | doesn't work (no results found) | doesn't work (no results found) |
| block | works | works |
| block g | doesn't work (no results found) | works |
With a Contains search the main issue seems to be that certain words/characters/phrases aren't indexed as part of the Full text index (although I can't find anything in the docs) which means including words like 'the' or 'and' (or characters such as '&' or an apostrophe) in the search field stops the search function from returning anything.
In our use case I can see users trying to search for libraries using all the search terms in the table above, yet neither of the configurable options ('Contains' or 'Equals') return features for every search term.
There's some information on how searching works and how the indexes are used on the blog here from @RussRoberts: https://www.esri.com/arcgis-blog/products/arcgis-online/mapping/searching-for-features-in-maps-and-a... but it doesn't explain anything about reserved words or how to get around the issues encountered above.
Looking at the table above, the Equals option is slightly preferable, but it completely relies on users knowing the beginning of the library name and prevents them from being able to find features using subsequent words from the name (e.g. 'library').
I'm surprised that nobody else seems to have encountered this issue as it doesn't feel like something that is specific to our unique requirements. If anyone has any ideas how we can get around this I would very much like to hear from you.
