Implementing features to improve the search experience

Building powerful search experiences means making it easy and seamless for users to quickly find information relevant to them. The following features build on top of the standard textbox-powered search applications to improve this experience.

This section demonstrates the search features in action with reference to the Recipe Search Service demo application.

Autocompleting search queries

Autocomplete functionality assists the user by providing suggestions on what they might be looking for. For example, a user who starts to type the word chicken can be shown a list of options with the prefix chicken to help them quickly narrow down on the content they're looking for.

Figure 10.4 – Autocompletion suggestions for recipes with the prefix "chicken"

Elasticsearch provides out-of-the-box capability for autocompletion using the completion field type.

The following index mapping...