Displaying large results sets Typically, large results sets cannot be displayed on a single Web page. This is because of the time taken to retrieve the data and because of scrolling problems for the end-user. In addition to reducing the number of hits returned, by increasing the precision of searches, it may also be sensible to investigate mechanisms for improving the way in which records are displayed. Remember that end-users may still not look through many pages of results even when they are presented in small chunks. It may be possible to use metadata both to rank and filter results, for example to display results only for resources that are of undergraduate level or above.
Most subject gateways provide a browsing interface to their data in addition to a search interface.
Many of the issues raised above apply equally to the browse interface. For example, as the number of records in the database grows, the lists of records presented in the browse interface are likely to become too long to be shown on a single Web page. As the database increases in size, the number of records per section will also increase unless the granularity of the classification scheme is increased. Therefore, there are some design decisions that need to be taken concerning the depth and complexity of the classification scheme used. It is worth noting that a combination of browse and search interfaces may help the end-user.