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Wheeee! I'm a big fan of the shortcut topic concept so I'm glad to see it getting official support. Some of my thoughts on them can be found here: www.hunch.com/forums/ideas/improving-branched-topics/ (where they are incorrectly referred to as branched topics).

The current rendition of shortcuts– while a step in the right direction– doesn't seem all that helpful and isn't particularly elegant. If I understand correctly, all the underlying mechanisms are the same but shortcuts allow users to skip a question when playing a topic. While it's more natural is you search for something specific (like in the blog's example) it doesn't feel like a massive improvement overall.

Now that shortcuts are officially supported, result prerequisites (see the forum topic above) seem more important than ever. Since one of the biggest problems with shortcut topics seems to be users getting results which don't match their most important answer(s) (e.g., a user with a Wii who gets suggestions for PS3 games), it seems like a system to deal with this is critical.

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The best way that I can think of to implement shortcut topics in the long run would be pretty simple and elegant for the final topic player but may be a bit complicated for the topic creator.

When someone creates a new topic, there would be the option to make it a shortcut topic. They would fill in the topic information as always making sure to keep the title pretty general (e.g., video games, not video games for the Wii). They would then be asked to create the "critical question" which would be the determining factor in the split-off into separate topics (e.g., on which game console will you be playing this game?).

From each response to the critical question, they would be asked to create a new sub-topic. They would be asked for a separate title (e.g., what video game for the Wii should I play?), a short modifier for the URL (e.g., wii) and any additional tags specific to that subtopic. They would then construct the subtopics as they would any other topic. Questions (and I suppose results) could also be added to the umbrella topic and they would be asked in every subtopic so that the creator wouldn't have to keep adding the same question.

When someone searches for a topic, the tags in both the shortcut topic and the subtopics would be used to deliver them to the most appropriate subtopic. If they click on the shortcut topic from the topic browser or something, they would be asked the critical question then seamlessly redirected to the correct subtopic.

This system may be a bit complicated (and, admittedly, I often like to do things the hard way) but I think it offers good control and customizability for the topic creator and fairly simple use for the topic player.

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I'm also curious as to how shortcuts are currently generated. Doing some sample searches I started to get the feeling that they were automatically generated but the topic shortcut that I was trying for (What kind of underwear should I wear? > Male) didn't come up. Is there a way to manually add shortcuts and if not, can one be added?

Posted at: 3:14PM on July 12, 2009. [ permalink ]

Hey gnome - I agree the current solution isn't super elegant. As they say, "perfect is the enemy of good" ... so rather than work through every detail right now, we just decided to release a decent first version. One thing we are considering is making it so if you add a result or question while in a shortcut topic, the "shortcut" (e.g. Wii) is automatically set as a prerequisite. I think this might solve at one of your main issues. You also talk about adding "critical" questions, which is something we are working on both in terms of shortcuts and more generally as a way to let certain response "short circuit" to the end. Anyways, thanks for the feedback and appreciate all your contributions!

Posted at: 8:37PM on July 12, 2009. [ permalink ]

That would be great if the shortcut was set as prerequisite. I think that would add a lot of utility to the current incarnation of shortcut topics.

You guys seems to be really on top of it idea-wise and I can't wait until some of this stuff is implemented.

Posted at: 8:59PM on July 12, 2009. [ permalink ]