I admit it. I’m a compulsive DIY-er, guilty of looking at anything and everything and thinking, “I could make that!” Hunting for my next DIY project is one of my favorite ways to spend a little free time and scrolling through social media can give me more than enough ideas for weeks.
So it’s no surprise that my newest discovery spot is my Shapeways feed of everyone I’m following. Every day I login to discover new products our community has designed, invented, or made. Even better? Every time I get notified of a new follower I fall down a new rabbit hole of discovery, easily spending an hour clicking through their products and the products of the people they like and follow.
I’ve found the coolest things on Shapeways this way, like:
Given my love of discovery, I’d get frustrated when a co-worker like Mitchell would mention some cool new train product he’d posted to his shop and I would excitedly go search for Mitchell on the site and find…nothing. Because Mitchell didn’t go by Mitchell. He went by Jettuh. How the heck was I supposed to know THAT?! It felt like I needed to 3D print a secret decoder ring of usernames to get into the club. Why couldn’t I simply find him by name?
Which is why I’m excited that starting today, March 16, 2016, I CAN find Mitchell simply by searching the site for Mitchell, making it even easier for DIYers like me to find all the cool things people are creating on Shapeways and to fall down new rabbit holes of discovery.
Happy Making!
Rebecca Fretty (My full everyday name.)
P.S. I know searching by name is not for everyone, which is why we’ve made it easy to opt out and to keep your information private. Just click the “opt out” box in your profile page to keep your name out of public search.
Featured image: White Rabbit wall decoration by SmartDesign
It doesn’t seem to work very well. When I use designer search for “loris” (without quotes), I get 214 hits, most of which don’t even include all of those letters (e.g. “Lori Cook”). And not myself or SLoris (but plenty of other internal hits like “DelorisLording” and “Sloris_Jesse”.
If you search for “drloris” you get me alone, if you search for “sloris” you get three hits including Sloris.
I think you have (at least) two issues to fix: Make it comprehensive, and if you must include partial matches, at least put the full hits at the top. Ideally if there is an exact match, put it in the first position.
DrLoris, thanks for this feedback. I have reported this into tech and we will get it fixed. Really appreciate your using the search function and helping us make it great. Cheers. REBF