Designing a better search
Advanced searches are patronising and counter productive. We suggest a better way of designing search interfaces.
The two types of searches
From time to time, I’m asked to design two searches for a website – Basic and Advanced. The rationale is always the same – other sites do it that way.
That always sets the alarm bells going since the usability of most websites isn’t great. But I’ve two real niggles with Basic and Advanced search.
The first is that it’s patronising. That ‘Advanced’ button really says ‘you’re probably too stupid to use these options’. Never a good policy.
The second is that it rarely fits with how people go about searching for stuff.
Gradual refinement
Search is an iterative process. People tend to start off with a fairly loose set of search terms and slowly add more to help them zero in on a result.
Starting off with a loose set of terms means users minimise effort. It also means they rely on the search engine being reasonably good at understanding what they need.
Start with the basics
So a better way to design a search is to have basic controls at first, let people see what the results look like, and then let them refine their results with a set of additional filters or sorting options.
Users aren’t overloaded with a set of advanced options on the first page. And they don’t need to put in a lot of effort up front.
Instead the interface becomes more complex as the task becomes more complex.
This hits the sweet spot for user interface design – the interface is always just simple enough, never too simple.
About the author
Giles has been making products more usable for over fifteen years. He was President of the UK Usability Professionals’ Association from 2003-2007 and speaks frequently on usability in the UK and overseas. He writes on usability for Revolution magazine and was one of the editors of the PAS 78 accessibility guide from the British Standards Institute. Email Giles, or call +44 (0)117 946 3930
Subscribe to the RSS feed
So much attention is paid to search engine optimisation and relatively little to on-site search. It would be great to see better and more thoughtful approaches to searching within a site.
Don’t even think of building search unless you know how you can optimize your search results page and ensure that what you display on the results page enables people to make actionable decisions.
Two great examples of actionable search results are on VW’s .com site and Apple’s site. Both have ‘featured’ results appearing in drop-down lists. Very slick and in VW’s case it virtually replaces standard site navigation. Is this the future…?
Thanks and suggest part of the fun is understanding what elements of a product or service people review to help them make a buy decision. Often see search results presenting irrelevant content that hinders the buy process.