Improve the search bar inside the prismic project to make it much friendlier for users searching for specific pages
Issue that it solves:
Currently, if the user searches for a specific term, there seems to be no weighting in the search to bring the most relevant pages to the top, relying on users to know the correct document category and go searching for the right page
In the screenshot below, the page with 'contact' in the title, URL, type, and throughout the page content should be the highest priority. The search results seem to be returned in last-edit order, and as long as the search term is present there's no other ordering for the pages (as far as I can tell) - not a great experience for a search bar, especially when there are lots of pages with the same search term.
Expected result
When searching for a term like "contact" the contact page should be returned first.
If the user wishes to order by last-edit-first then that should be their choice, not forced (forcing sort by update order is actually a wider problem across prismic in general).
Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately, even following that document the search doesn't work as expected.
The document you link shows a user searching for a specific document title, and that exact document appearing without any other parameters being set.
This is simply not how the search works in my experience working with real content (as shown in my image above). The UI is also entirely different in that example, so maybe this was recorded in a beta version of the app or something, but as it stands the search is not working as expected - therefore I would consider this a bug rather than a feature request.
Fuzzy search isn't an issue where results are still prioritised. The problem I'm finding is that results are so hit-and-miss, even when I search for exact terms, that I simply can't use the search bar to find documents.
I would really like to see this too, and we are tracking this as a feature request. We are aware that the search is in need of improvements. We are exploring options of how we could improve it in the future, but it’s not something that is in our immediate roadmap.
It's 2022, document search results are still ordered by 'Last updated' and not relevance.
I've invented a workaround though...
Step1: Try to remember the exact name of the document I want to find
Step2: Was it 'All books', was it 'All products', was it 'Personalised products range page'
Step3: Try each one in turn
Step4: Give up on Prismic search bar
Step5: Scroll down 10 times to load in 100 documents
Step6: Search the page using Google Chrome cmd + f to find strings which match what I think the document is called
I have been working for nearly 2 years now on Prismic with a team of 10+ editors and Content Managers and I can tell that the improvement of internal search relevance is the most awaited feature among the team.
We implemented the workaround described by @gareth but we hope for a real upgrade of current search in the future.
Thanks,
Gatien
I've also been working with Prismic for over 3 years now and this is one of the main features that impact day-to-day operations for all of my clients. Not a problem if it's a small website, but a huge impact if the website has >100 documents
I'm still waiting for this to help with my clients too.
Unfortunately, I think that's the main takeaway for requesting any features or improvements in Prismic
After just over 2 years working with prismic myself, I've given up asking
There are so many features like this that would make a significant improvement to the workflow in Prismic for developers and editors, agencies and clients.
This, anchor links, blockquotes, media folders - basic features that, so far, have been skipped right past.
I appreciate that there are always lots of things changing behind the scenes that we don't see, and some features (like improved search) may be more work than they appear on the surface.
I hope that the new editor release triggers much more responsive feature updates (rather than 2+ year waiting times).
Hi @dan, We understand. We're constantly working to categorize and prioritize feature requests according to user demand, it is also true that in recent months we have dedicated ourselves extensively to continue improving the user experience with Slice Machine. It is for this reason that other types of requests can be slowed down, but this does not mean that they are forgotten. They are only postponed for future changes.
You can see all the features we are currently working on and the next ones on our progress page:
I'm joining the chorus here to say that Prismic's approach to document search is embarrassing and makes it hard to recommend the platform to others (i.e., makes it hard for us to support organic growth of your product), much less imagine a multi-year relationship with Prismic as a vendor/solution.
Please consider this another vote for nailing the basics.
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