Skip to content

Skill S18 · Vitrine — Search Optimization

/search-optimization

Improves a site's own search box: relevance, synonyms, typo tolerance, ranking and empty states, proven with a table of real queries and their expected results.

When people search your library, docs or catalogue and don't find what's there.

Good site search is predictable: the obvious query finds the obvious thing first. Every change here is checked against a query table, so improving one search can't silently break another.

1. Build the query table first

Write 30–60 queries real people would type, each with the results that must appear in the top 5. Cover:

  • Exact names: "silk field".
  • What it is, not what it's called: "animated button", "glass button", "background", "card", "chart".
  • Jargon and short forms: "cta", "auth", "login", "sign in", "ai", "llm", "nav", "modal", "toast".
  • Plurals and capitals: "Buttons", "PRICING".
  • One typo: "backgorund", "pricng".
  • Two-word intents: "pricing toggle", "dark mode switch".
  • Nonsense: "zzzz", which must show a helpful empty state, not an error.

Run it as a script against the real search function and print pass/fail per row. This is the test suite.

2. Know what each item is indexed by

Search can only find what its metadata says. For every item check that it has:

  • a name;
  • a category with a human label;
  • 4–8 tags that use the words people search with ("glass", "cta", "login"), not internal ones;
  • a description that says what it is in plain words.

Missing or inconsistent tags are the most common cause of "search can't find it". Fix the data before the algorithm.

3. Synonyms, explicitly

Keep a small, reviewed synonym map from what people type to the vocabulary of your data:

  • cta → call to action / ctas
  • login, signin → auth / sign in
  • chart, graph → analytics / stats
  • llm, chat → ai
  • menu → navbar / navigation
  • modal → dialog / overlay

Expand each query term to term OR its synonyms. Score synonym hits slightly below exact hits, so "login" still ranks a component literally named "login" first. Never generate synonyms automatically; every entry is a decision.

4. Matching and ranking

  • Tokenise lowercase on non-alphanumerics, and fold plurals (strip a trailing "s"/"es" when the stem matches).
  • Field weights: name > tags = category > description. Multi-word queries are AND, with each term matching some field.
  • Partial matching: prefix matches on any word; substring only for terms of 4 or more characters.
  • Typos: allow 1 edit for terms of 5 or more characters, scored lowest.
  • Ties fall back to the curated order, so results don't shuffle between renders.

5. The interface

  • Results update as you type (debounce ≤ 150ms), and the query lives in the URL (?q=) so it can be shared and survives reload. Search-result URLs canonicalise to the unfiltered page.
  • Keyboard: a shortcut opens search, ↑/↓ move, Enter opens, Escape closes or clears.
  • Empty state: say what was searched, suggest the nearest categories or a correction, and offer to clear.
  • Show the result count, and announce it politely to screen readers.

Output

The query table before and after, with every row passing, plus the list of metadata fixes and synonym entries added.

Featured

01Glassbreak ButtonA solid plate that fractures from one impact point, cracks racing outward as the shards drift apart.04Liquid GlassA capsule of glass that bends what's behind it, carries a specular highlight around its rim toward your pointer, and squashes like a drop of liquid when pressed.07Phosphor Glass ButtonA liquid-glass pill that senses you coming: its rim light turns to face the cursor and the pill leans in to meet it.08Iris ShutterAn async button with a camera iris for a status light — blades close and turn while it works, then open onto the result.
81Atmosphere CardSmoked-glass link cards: colour pooled in the corners, slow contour currents underneath, a field that leans toward you.93Eclipse Event CardAn editorial event plate with an oversized date and an orbital eclipse bleeding in from the right, alive with slow drift.94Specimen CardAn object mounted under glass: hover lifts the pane with a sweep of reflection and swings out a paper catalogue tag.
95Silk FieldDomain-warped light that pours like liquid silk, with an optional glass lens that refracts the flow under your cursor.106IsobarA living weather map — contour lines traced over a drifting pressure field, with your cursor as a system of its own.
151Prompt ComposerA chat composer where attached files tuck into its top edge like tabs in a folder — they rise from behind it when added and sink back when removed. Send turns into stop while the reply streams.157Aura FieldA writing field where colour only exists while the AI is touching your text: the edge becomes a turning band of light and the words are rewritten in place, one by one, out of a soft blur.
205Halftone CTAA tall CTA banner where slow gold paint drifts beneath a fixed halftone grid, visible only through the dots.
212Nocturne Sign-inA single quiet column on near-black with a breathing seam of frost light behind it — email, password, magic link, nothing more.222Sigil Sign-inA split sign-in whose left half grows a geometric mark from your email — the same address always draws the same sigil.
275Voices CarouselA testimonial exhibition: one large quote at a time on frosted glass, crossfading between voices without ever resizing.
279Feral TitleA brutal condensed wordmark — heartbeat in the dark, letters slam in, a gash tears through and the word bleeds.
301 components