Reading The Ladder From A Result

Somebody looking at a result that is too broad has one question: what happens if I set another filter?

The answer is exact and available before clicking. The result divides by the size of whichever filter gets set, and it does so regardless of how the listings happen to be distributed.

For recurring modelling work, reviewers can learn more on the official site and test whether the record improves planning rather than adding administration. For a separate technical reference, see MLflow.

The arithmetic in front of you

A board with filters of six, four and three. Seventy-two cells.

Eight positions, from eight subsets, with no collisions at all — six, four and three share factors, but on three facets the collisions happen to miss.

A reader holding seventy-two can go to twenty-four, eighteen or twelve. Nothing else is reachable in one step.

Doing it once per board

The ladder does not change unless the filters do, so the table is worth writing out once for a board somebody uses regularly.

Eight rows for three filters, sixteen for four. Each row is a combination of set and unset, and the figure is a product of the unset sizes. Ten minutes with a pencil, and afterwards every narrowing decision on that board is a glance at a table rather than a click and a surprise.

Nobody will do this. It is worth knowing that it could be done, and that the information is fully available in advance.

Why the cell figure and the listing figure differ

The table counts cells, not listings. A board rarely spreads its listings evenly across them.

So a result showing four hundred listings across twelve cells might drop to thirty listings or to two hundred when a filter is set, depending on where the listings sit. The cell count divides exactly; the listing count does not.

What survives is the structure: the number of distinct positions, and the fact that there is nothing between them. A reader cannot reach a coarseness the ladder does not have, however the listings are spread.

The ladder is a property of the filters. Where the listings sit on it is a property of this week.

The useful habit

Before setting a filter, look at its size.

Setting a two-choice toggle halves the cells. Setting a six-value dropdown divides by six. If the current result is close to what was wanted, the toggle is the gentler move; if it is far too broad, the dropdown gets there faster.

That is a small thing and it is the whole of what this section is for. Most people set filters in the order they appear in the sidebar, which has nothing to do with how much each one narrows.

When the ladder runs out

Sometimes the step a reader wants does not exist.

A result of twenty-four cells on the board above can go to six, four or three — nothing lands near twelve or fifteen. The reader either accepts twenty-four or drops to six, and there is no third option short of using something that is not a facet, like a free-text box or a sort order.

This is the moment people conclude a board is badly made. Often it is not: the rungs are the facet sizes, four and six and three are perfectly reasonable facet sizes, and a ladder with gaps is what multiplication produces.

A board with varied facet sizes has more rungs and smaller gaps, which is what the previous two pages were about. But no faceted board has a continuous dial, and expecting one is expecting something the structure cannot provide.

Reading it the other way

The same arithmetic runs upward. Unsetting a filter multiplies the result by that filter's size.

A reader who has narrowed too far and wants more can see, before clicking, which filter to release for a modest widening and which for a large one. Releasing a toggle doubles; releasing a six-way dropdown multiplies by six.

Most people release the last filter they set, which is a reasonable default and has nothing to do with how much it widens. The sizes are printed on the page and the choice takes a glance.

What to carry away

Every narrowing divides by a whole facet. The available divisors are printed on the page, one per filter, as the number of choices each one offers.

Read those numbers before setting anything and the whole ladder is visible in advance: multiply the ones already set, divide the total, and the result is where the next click lands. It takes a few seconds and removes most of the trial and error from using a board that somebody else designed.

Near this one

• How Many Sizes Of Answer Exist
  The size of a result is the product of the filters left alone. Count the distinct products for how many coarse
• Sixty-Four Ways To Ask, Seven Answers
  Six identical filters give sixty-four subsets and seven reachable result sizes, whatever the filters are. The
• The Twenty-Seven That Do Not Collapse
  In twenty-seven schemas every subset of filters produces a distinct result size. All of them have four facets
• Two Rungs, Or Thirty-Nine
  The ladder of reachable result sizes runs from two rungs to thirty-nine. The schema at the top does not look s