[Solved] Filtering: UI/UX suggestions

[Renee]

The filtering UI is certainly robust and offers a lot of value, but at the same time, there are a few UI/usability issues which make it cumbersome to use for simple use cases:

1. Clear filter button
   a) Placement:  Why is the "clear filter" button always there and the first thing I see, even when I don't have any filters?  One possible build might be to hide the button with CSS when there is no filter applied such that the button only shows up when the button is useful.
   
   b) When a user clicks "clear filter", the panel doesn't go away.  I know it's not horrible (especially since the grid updates in the background), but I would think that the majority use-cases here are to 
       1) clear the filter and close the panel  or
       2) update the search with something else and search again. 
   I'm not sure why a user would want to clear it and then decide to search again.  I'm sure it happens, but I'd venture to guess it was a minority use case.
    
2. Logical defaults
   For string matching in particular, I can't imagine why "is equal to" is the default. In our use cases, "contains" is by far the most common use case.  The mere fact that 'contains' will always return results for "is equal to" plus others seems to point to it being a logical default.  I'd lobby to have Telerik change the default.
3. Two filtering inputs
   Is the 80% use case really that users need two different inputs to filter?  I would think that is an advanced use case at best.  Is there a way to show the 2nd filter only when requested, thus simplifying the initial interface?  And, if two filters are how most people use this, then again, I would think having the "is equal to" be the default matching would be that much more frustrating since a user would always be changing it (it's impossible to do a match with "is equal to" where you'd need a 2nd match in your query).  For the two filter use case, again, I would think that a logical default would be "contains" for each.

Is there any chance Telerik would consider addressing some of these issues?
-Renee

[Dimo]

Hi Renee,

Thank you for your feedback.

From now on the filtering menu will close when you click on the Clear button. As for the other suggestions, we will consider implementing them for a future version of the Grid, but being breaking changes, we prefer to receive some more feedback from customers before that.

I have updated your Telerik points.

Greetings,
Dimo
the Telerik team

[Örjan]

I agree with all suggestions from Renee. I did find a solutions how to manually change the default filter setting with a script, but I wouldn't like to add this to all my views that are using a grid.

It would be great if we could hide as much information as possible for the most common use cases just like Renee says, I second that.

I would also like the "Filter" button to be default and pressed when I hit Enter. Now it clears my filter and that is not what I would expect. If this isn't going to be changed in a near future, is it possible to make the "Filter" button default with a script?

-- Örjan Jämte