TwigKit is an easy-to-use toolkit that makes it easy to quickly build full-featured search applications that are delightful to use.
Search results, faceted navigation, pagination, autocompletion, and user authentication have never been easier.
Search is powerful. Usually, it's also difficult, expensive, and time intensive. But it doesn't have to be.
TwigKit simplifies the development cycle by providing concise tools for indexing, searching, and presenting results, facets, and visualisations to users. Let TwigKit do the legwork so that you can focus on what matters.
Search is hard. That's why we've tirelessly researched and lovingly crafted every aspect of a truly usable search experience. We've distilled our years of search and UX experience into easily-customisable user interface patterns. From faceted navigation and breadcrumbs to autocomplete and tag clouds, TwigKit gives you the expertise to delight your users.
Built from ground up to rigidly adhere to organisation's security requirements, TwigKit seamlessly integrates with systems like Active Directory so that you can control exactly who sees what.
And because TwigKit brokers communication between platform and application, you're protected when upgrading or even switching platforms.
We care about the details. That's why we use 100% standards compliant XHTML and CSS. We utilise all the latest and greatest techniques to offer progressive enhancements in modern browsers, but everything we do is fully functional all the way down to IE6. Even more, we strive for accessibility throughout our framework.
Effortlessly choose how many items to display, whether to show a result count and/or frequency bar, and if facets should be expandable.
Whether it's a list of ingredients, a hierarchy, or a collection of tags, TwigKit can turn any field into an interactive element that refines the query.
Add an icon, add a label, add a frequency bar, or just use single list — making autocomplete work for you couldn't be easier. One size doesn't have to fit all.
Who says search results always have to be ten blue links? TwigKit makes it easy to visualise data with charts and graphs, and even select date ranges on a histogram.
There are plenty of nuances and gotchas involved in creating a complete search application. But our clear, concise framework cuts through the confusion by providing you with a single vocabulary for communicating with all the major search platforms. TwigKit knows the ins and outs of popular search technologies so that you don’t have to.
Straightforward and well-documented, TwigKit’s advanced tag library makes adding search elements as easy as writing HTML, and ensures that no low-level code creeps into your markup.
Have a custom business application that needs to connect to the search platform? TwigKit's web services layer makes it easy to integrate bespoke systems.
TwigKit provides hooks into any part of the search workflow. Create processors in minutes to intercept and work with queries before they’re submitted, or results before they’re displayed.
We live and breathe search. We read about it, we write about it; we talk about it, we give presentations about it. We’re also seasoned practitioners, having built dozens of search applications for organisations in media, education, government, and security.
We know just how useful search can be, but we’ve seen its potential squandered far too frequently. Poorly executed user interfaces and long, drawn-out development cycles are often to blame. Our background in both information retrieval and user experience uniquely positions us to deliver a holistic search experience. Our goal is to encapsulate this expertise into reusable components that exhibit the best practices of search, resulting in quicker deployment and more intuitive user interfaces for all.
TwigKit was founded in 2009 by H. Stefan Olafsson and Tyler Tate in London, England.
Stefan and Tyler presented "The Scent of Search: Utilising Information Scent"
"When information scent is strong, users are confident..."
Stefan has spent the last 7 years working with search, first at FAST, then at Microsoft, and more recently with many open source technologies. He has a M.Sc. in Information Systems from London School of Economics.
Over the last decade Tyler has led the user interface design of applications from CMS to CRM, is the creator of the popular 1KB CSS Grid, has taught web design, and is now focused on the UX of search.
Tyler and Stefan started Enterprise Search London in late 2009 as a monthly gathering for search practitioners. The meetup has over 90 members and has hosted many outstanding speakers.
Find out more.
Are you a search engineer with a Java background or a front-end developer strong in JavaScript? Email us.
