Search Capabilities - Page 23

My usability studies show that slightly more than half of all users are search-dominant, about a fifth of the users are link- dominant, and the rest exhibit mixed behavior. The search- dominant users will usually go straight for the search button when they enter a website. They are not interested in looking around the site; they are task-focused and want to find specific information as fast as possible. In contrast, the link- dominant users prefer to follow the links around a site. Even when they want to find specific information, they will initially try to get to it by following promising links from the home page. Only when they get hopelessly lost will link-dominant users admit defeat and use a search command. Mixed-behavior users switch between search and link-following, depending on what seems most promising to them at any given time, but they do not have an inherent preference.

Don't Search the Web

For unknown reasons, many websites feel compelled to offer a search-engine feature that allows users to choose whether to search the current site or the entire Internet. This is a bad idea. People know where to find a web-wide search engine; these sites are the most used services on the Web. There is no need to clutter up your interface with one more option that has so little utility.

Despite the primacy of search, web design still needs to be grounded in a strong sense of structure and navigation support. All pages must make it clear where they fit in the larger scheme of the site. First, there is obviously a need to support those users who don't like search or who belong to the mixed-behavior group. Second, users who do use search to get to a page still need structure to understand the nature of the page relative to the rest of the site. They also need navigation to move around the site in the neighborhood of the page they found by searching. It is a rare case that a single page holds all the answers, so normally users also want to see related pages.

Search should be easily available from every single page on the site. Search-dominant users will often click on a search button right on the home page, but other users may move around until they become lost. Once that happens, you don't want them to have to search for the search, so it should be right there on the page. This means any page because you can't predict when users will give up navigating and look for the search button.

Micro-Navigation

In addition to moving across the expanse of the site, users also need to move around inside a local region of the site. They even need to be able to move between the pages that constitute a single "package," such as an article with sidebars or a product page.

Sometimes, special areas of a site are sufficiently coherent and distinct from the rest of the site that it makes sense to offer a scoped search that is restricted to only search that subsite. In general, I warn against scoped search because our observations have shown that users often don't understand the structure of sites. It is quite common for users to believe that the answer is in the wrong subsite, meaning that they will never find it in a scoped search. Other times, users don't realize where they are and what scope they are searching, so they may think that they are searching the entire site or a different subsite than the one they are actually in.

In contemplating a scoped search option, designers should have a strong bias in favor of avoiding scoping. If the site in fact has subsites that necessitate scoped search, then all scoped search pages must do two things:

• Explicitly state what scope is being searched. This should be indicated at the top of both the query page and the results page.
• Include a link to the page that searches the entire site. Again, this link needs to be on both the query page and the results page. On the results page it should be encoded as a link saying something like "Didn't find what you were looking for? Try to extend your search to the entire Foo.com site." Following this latter link should activate the global search with the same query as used for the scoped search, and it should take the user directly to the results page for the expanded search.

At first sight it may seem strange to consider Bill Gates’ speeches and columns to be a subsite, but considering his many fans (and opponents) it is actually quite likely that many users will be interested in finding Bill-quotes. This subsite search is well-designed in most ways: It is clear that it is searching a subsite, and the subsite is well-defined. I doubt any users will try to use this page when searching for a workaround to the latest Excel bug.

I only have two problems with this page. There should be an explicit link to searching the full Microsoft site, and the type- in box should be wider to encourage users to enter more terms. The top navigation bar does include a button for global search, but considering the many occurrences of the word “search” on this page, I would have preferred an explicit link located in the con- tent of the page. Very few users will look above the colored "Bill Gates" bar.

Subsites - Page 22
Designing Web Usability
Advanced Search - Page 24