I would say analytics and powerful search functionality are the biggest gaps in a content management system, CMS. Since my video library is claiming to be the smartest, its search better do something cool.

There are two problems here:

1. WordPress’ default search functionality sucks. (It’s not a design flaw. The problem is how do you make search the most useful to the biggest common base.)
2. For my video page, any search result returns the same page. So, it has no meaning.

I asked my coworker, the brilliant and multitalented business analyst, Alberto De Salas, how he likes to see search results. He said that it has to be a list with a title and description. He is totally right!

Since my video page is being generated by extracting values from two arrays, one for each thumbnail strip, I can use JavaScript to search their values and then pull the positive matches to display the search results!

I can reuse the same jQuery I wrote to create the thumbnail galleries to put the search results into their own thumbnail gallery. That way, users can play their search results without leaving the page 🙂

I learned from a previous job how important search results are because they can drive users to areas they weren’t interested in before. Think of them as adaptable extensions of your navigation menu.