>>Hi everybody,
>>
>>Suppose, I have a huge list of items, say, users - more than 10000. I need to design an interface with the ability to quickly find the necessary person. What kind of interface would be convenient for this task?
>>
>>Thanks in advance for sharing your ideas.
>
>One possibility is to use a text box. Let the user type in a search value and incrementally search for it (w/ RECNO(0) etc.). When the user hits a "Done" button, present the RECNO(0) record plus the prior (say) 5 and the next 10 records in a listbox or combo for final selection.
>
>Doing this with an Internet connection could be tricky.

Right. What I'd have in mind is doing a search on the string (once it's complete and submitted), and then, depending on the results:
a - if exactly one found, behave as if that's the one. There's always an option to search again
b - if none found, search for similar, using various upper(), reduce() and soundex() until a sufficient (YMMV) number comes up, rank them by similarity. Present a list and ask to pick one or search again.
c - if more than one found, present them as in above list, plus a button to "search similar" and then apply the same artillery as in (b).