Search Interface: In Search of Better Search
A website can suffer in findability for many reasons, one of which is the lack of a good site search feature. Either it is hard to use, returns irrelevant results or there is no search feature at all. I’m going to discuss how search can be made better.
How important is Good Search?
There are many ways users can get to the content you want them to get to. Search is one of them, and a major one. When users are faced with large amounts of information, such as a huge online bookstore with thousands or even millions of titles, it is hard to just click through stuff and narrow down with pre-defined criteria, e.g. category and subject. Search enables a user to filter books with custom criteria such as author name, publisher and year of publication, within a single search. If users cannot find information with ease, you lose potential sales and credibility. If users can find information with ease, especially when it matters to them, e.g. privacy policies, offer programs, shipping information, you get better sales, credibility and portray a better brand image.
Good search definitely starts with a good search engine but I will not go into about how well can a search engine be programmed and stuff about indexing, instead I will talk about the UI aspects of search, i.e. the search interface and presentation of search results.
What is a good search interface?
For a user to successfully find something relevant by searching, the user has to first know where your search is and be able to use it. Most of the time the search interface or “search box” is presented as a simple form consisting of a text field for the entry of search terms and a submit button. The search box is usually placed in the header of the website where it is more visible. This is of course not a hard and fast rule. The general guideline is to make the search box visually prominent, well above the fold and accessible without scrolling. It is also important to let the user do a basic search from anywhere, without the need to click a link to go to a search page. Sometimes a basic search is not enough if the user has specific criteria. Provide an “advanced search” feature to allow the user to make a search that returns more specified results.
Searching on apple.com is easy. The white search text field is clearly visible by contrast with the grey navigation menu. A simple and ubiquitous magnifier icon tells the user that it is used for search.
What makes a bad search interface?
Simply put, a bad search interface is one that is hard to find and hard to use. When designing websites, the designer should take into consideration the various screen sizes users are going to view the website in and take note that not all users maximize their windows. So it is vital the search interface is placed where it is visible even if the browser window is resized smaller.
Digital Thread has a very aesthetically pleasing website design but in my opinion could do better with a top navigation row instead of one on the side. At 1024 x 768 display resolution, the hardly-visible search box is almost at the bottom of the screen. Not to mention that a good number of people do not browse in a maximized window, thus the search box might not be visible to them.
Sample compact form General form design and usability guidelines also apply to search. Always provide descriptive labels so your search form looks obviously like one. One popular approach employed by many websites is to pre-populate the search text field with a phrases like “Enter Search Terms”, “Search here” and “Type and Search” and clearing the text field on mouse focus with JavaScript. This results in a more compact form design but suffers in accessibility because of the lack of a
Presentation of search results
Search is basically a 2-step process, searching and looking at results. Users when searching for information on a website, they either know what they want to find (known-item seeking) or just gathering options they can find (exploratory-seeking). The presentation of search results has to fulfill the needs of these two main kinds of information seekers.
How your search results should be presented depends on what kind of information people are searching for. A search on an employee database should return tabulated rows of employee names, identification and other data. A search on an online shop should return product listings with prices, product thumbnails and other information that would matter to a shopper.
There is a growing trend with “Live Search”, a fairly recent style of presenting fast search results via Ajax in a floating layer/box below the search form. Live search are great for quickly retrieving results of popular content and by clicking a “Show all” or “View all results” link, a user can view the complete list of results. Live search works on the philosophy that people are usually searching or re-searching content that are popular, therefore quickly presenting popular content will satisfy the majority of users. This is very true. Take for example Apple, which has a really good way of presenting live search results.
Searching on apple.com Let’s say you are a PC and Windows user who has heard good things about how Macs are less prone to virus attacks, more stable and generally a joy to work with, but you have also heard how people like you who grew up on Windows, find it hard to switch to a Mac. So you visit the Apple apple website to find out more for yourself. You decide to search for information on “switching”. Theoretically, the returned search results should include information on how someone can switch from PCs to Macs and also content from technical support information that involves powering on or off a Mac. In this case, only Mac 101 and Switch 101 are shown in the live search results, because they are more popular content. Thumbnails in each search result entry also provide hints of the content ahead, which is especially helpful when searching for let’s say… movie trailers.
Are we done yet?
Giving users a good search UI and relevant results is not the end. The process of finding information is hardly a process with distinct start and end points, especially when users do not know exactly what they want and will look around for content that might interest them. Such users engage in “exploratory seeking”. Just like exploration in the physical world, users might go back to previous results while navigating their harvest of information.
Veoh search history Veoh is a internet TV service that gives users free access to TV and film studio content, independent productions, and user-generated videos on the Web. I watch mostly Japanese animation and documentaries on Veoh and one feature I particularly like is how Veoh stores your search history when you are logged in. This feature is very helpful when I am looking for video content on for example marine wildlife, to watch. Many documentaries on the subject have been made so I will need to search with a variety of terms to decently explore the content available for marine wildlife. Having a list of past searches allows me to repeat a search if I might have missed something.
To wrap things up…
Search is important because it increases the findability of the content on your website which is important if your website goals are driven or influenced by how easily users can find information. Well-designed and accessible search interfaces and good presentation of search results makes search usable for users. Other features that can enhance information-seeking by search, such as Veoh’s search history can make exploratory-seeking more painless.
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Search in the Encyclopedia of Law
In general, there are some search tools in the Encyclopedia of Law platform:
- Advanced Tips in the Legal Encyclopedias: This page focuses on using search engine Advanced Search to get more specific search results.
- Systems Search in the Legal Encyclopedias:Legal Research Systems and Search. Results The Encyclopedia of Law use Headnotes, Titles and Labels to organize and summarize all statutes, cases and entries.
- Customized Search of the Legal Encyclopedias:There a large amount of websites containing useful legal information, but with relatively few sites linking to them.
- Search Tools for the Legal Encyclopedias, including Search Tips. Note that more advanced tips are available in this Portal. Start Simple. Start with just a few terms. Do not include every possible word.
- Thesaurus Search in the Legal EncyclopediasA thesaurus provides a standard language or set of terms with which to describe a topic. Use thesaurus terms to help retrieve the maximum search results.
- Popular Searches in the Legal Encyclopedias
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