Zero search results page

Notice: This documentation has been deprecated

For new web site development and existing site improvement, please refer to the EBI Visual Framework (v1.1) documentation. All services are expected to use the new framework by February 2017.

Problem:

We strive to avoid zero results pages but they are hard to avoid entirely. When a user's search fails to return any results, we need to help them out.

Solution:

Provide helpful messaging, "what now?" tips and links to data from other EBI resources to give the user a range of options.

Usage:

Please see the EBI-no-search-results.html template (http://www.ebi.ac.uk/web_guidelines/html/compliance/ebi-no-search-results.html) as an example. Give the user some options for what they can do now. They may just search again, but other useful conventions include "Try this..." or "Did you mean..." suggestions if you can implement these. Please display the global results widget in a column on the right-hand side of the page. It is also good practice to provide the user with a clear link to your Help or Support. This is probably best placed after the other options, keeping it as a last option!