The Data WA team are excited to bring you a brand new searching experience!
Launching today, we have a whole host of improvements to our dataset search for you:
Autocomplete search suggestions - skip the search results and jump straight to the dataset, or apply a filter to your search with a single click!
Did You Mean prompts and fuzzy searching, so you can spend less effort worrying about minor spelling mistakes (and whether “road” or “roads” would be a better keyword).
Do you take your searching as seriously as we do? Now you can use Advanced search, including searching within specific attributes, stacking terms with AND/OR logic, and even excluding terms with the NOT toggle. Or if you’re already a whiz at Solr queries, try the new Use query language to search option.
Filters have had an overhaul, with a nicer layout, easy access to less popular filters, and the ability to choose more than one filter within a category. Combine with Advanced search to really give your search skills a workout!
Behind the scenes we’ve added a synonym dictionary and better relevancy weightings, to help you find more datasets while keeping the most relevant results on top. Our admins can even manually bump up a dataset’s search weighting if needed.
Love the changes? Why not tell us what you like best using the new Feedback widget, now floating on the right-hand edge of most Data WA pages. And of course, we’re always pleased to hear your thoughts via info@data.wa.gov.au.
– The Data WA team