A lot has been written about filters in the context of the user’s journey, complex enterprise software, UI patterns, and UX patterns.

Surprisingly, there’s little to nothing written for designers about the logic of how filters work, outside the realm of engineering articles. Which is a shame, given how important they are for the user’s experience.

If you don’t understand the logic behind how filters affect results, your designs will be limited to just visuals, you’ll be shifting a critical part of the user experience to engineers, and you won’t be able to discuss tradeoffs if needed.