I'm wondering how best to handle providing the user the ability to filter channel entries via the front end with the selection of multiple criteria simultaneously - kind of like some real estate sites do, only in my case, I'm looking to filter entries each of which is a cosmetic surgical case (which is mostly photo content, but there is a little bit of text associated with each as well). The user needs the ability to filter according to procedure, male/female, weeks post-op, and possibly other filters that get added down the line.
I had been planning to have procedures as entries and cases as entries, then using Playa relationships to tie them together, but the fact that i need to be abel to offer multiple filter criteria at once (limit view to facelifts, male, 6 weeks post-op, for example) makes that a daunting task from my perspective.
Should I be looking at categories instead (I'm not a fan of categories normally)? Or should I be using a search add-on like Low search. Very interested to hear from the EE community on what would give me the most flexible solution (not to mention which would be manageable to implement).