Making useful filters

"A lot has been written about filters in the context of the user's journey, complex enterprise software, UI patterns, and UX patterns. Surprisingly, there's little to nothing written for designers about the logic of how filters work, outside the realm of engineering articles. Which is a shame, given how important they are for the user's experience. If you don't understand the logic behind how filters affect results, your designs will be limited to just visuals,"

"Not as straightforward as you might think Filters are so common that you might feel a false sense of confidence when designing some for the first time. If you've tried it, you know it can get confusing real fast. To prepare for the battle, let's look at how filters work. What are filters, really? Filters are operations that let you select what you want from a group. They work by showing or hiding items that share common characteristics."

Filters operate as selection operations that show or hide items from a set based on shared characteristics. Designers need to understand filter logic to avoid limiting designs to visuals and to manage UX tradeoffs rather than deferring decisions to engineers. Filters are common but deceptively complex, and naive designs can produce confusing behavior for users. A clear mental model of how filters analyze content and exclude items that do not meet criteria enables predictable results and better interface choices. Preparing for filter design requires anticipating user expectations, edge cases, and the interactions between multiple filters.

Read at Medium