Search and sensibility: Four tales of search. Presented at OZ-IA Conference, Sydney Sept. 20th 2008
Advanced Session, presented by Louisa Cameron, Angus Fraser, Scott Bryant, Chris Khalil (News Digital Media).
With the improved quality and growing user familiarity with search engines, site search is now an integral aspect of the IA for any information-rich website, yet there is more than one kind of site search. Different types of search can evolve to meet the needs of different users in different contexts.
The audience will hear about four different search contexts and will be shown how some tailored search mechanisms have been deployed on large commercial websites:
Careerone.com.au have conducted research and usability studies to learn about our job seekers and to find out about the unique context of job hunting.
TrueLocal.com.au is a local business directory where information is mapped to physical locations. What are the conventions & challenges of “local search”? What do users mean by “here”? What are the differences between web and mobile implementations?
Carsguide.com.au realises that searching for cars isn't easy, particularly if you don't know anything about cars. Guided search offers a way to assist users to move through the car buying process. We'll share some insights gained from designing guided search and share the challenges of positioning search and browse.
Increasingly search is driving traffic not just to your homepage but also to pages on lower levels of your site. To really harness this traffic it's important to start treating these lower level pages as mini homepages. News.com.au are doing this by using search to generate contextually relevant links and hence harvest long tail traffic.
We will compare and contrast the search experiences offered by these different services and in discussing the issues and considerations behind them reveal some of the lessons learned and offer pointers for improving your own work in search.
This will be a group presentation, delivered by four members of the News Digital Media experience architecture team. Each presenter will give a brief outline of the project they worked on, including the lessons learned from an IA practitioner's perspective.
1. Search & Sensibility
Four tales of search
Sept 2008
Louisa Cameron
Senior Experience Architect, USiT
News Digital Media
2. Search is unique, depending on
the context
“… a widespread and mistaken perception that
search is little more than a white search box
adorned with the occasional appealing graphics”
Marc Quantrill
Source: MAD Technology Weekly UK, Aug 2008
3. Searchers have different needs
“When I find an article I like,
I find myself clicking through
all the related stuff”
“It’s not like I’m looking for a job,
but if something better comes along…”
4. It is important to understand
behaviour patterns
“After asking thousands of people to think
about how they search, only one thing has
been consistent in our findings. People
don’t really know.”
Source: Google Eye Tracking report, Enquiro, Eyetools and Did-It, July 2005
5. Job seeker personas
1. Career based
Looking for dream job.
2. Change based
Seeking work-life balance.
3. Needs based
Return to work mother looking for local job.
6. Behaviour patterns of job seekers
1. Not brand loyal
2. Search using set criteria
3. Search every 3 days when active
4. Need to refine within results
5. Look at 5 or 6 pages of results
7. 1. Job seekers are not brand loyal
• For general search, people probably use same
search engine every time they search
• There is an argument for designing similar to
competitors to create a consistent experience
9. Is advanced search necessary?
quot;Advanced search is the ugly child of
interface design - always included, but
never loved.quot;
Stephen Turbek
Source: Boxes and Arrows, Jan 2008
16. In summary …
“Designers can better cater to what appears to be
chaos: make available those capabilities that
best support the range of known behavior
patterns for your target personas”
John Ferrara
Source: Boxes and Arrows, Jan 2008
17. Local Search
Tale 2/4
Angus Fraser
Senior Experience Architect, USiT
News Digital Media 1
32. Guided Search
Tale 3/4
Scott Bryant
Senior Experience Architect, USiT
News Digital Media
33. 4 key things
1. What do we mean by guided search?
2. The car buying process & search
3. Features of guided search
4. Multi-selection search scenario
34. What do we mean by guided search?
• A “Funnelquot;
• More than just facets
• Exploratory search
• Provides “information
scent”
• Predictive of users
previous and next
steps
• Navigation paths built
on structured data
35. 98,106 cars online
(Business goal #1)
“right car for you”
37. What we know about our users
• They don’t know what type of car they want or what their
money can buy
• The majority search for used cars, but are after recent
models
• Are seeking specific advice
43. Features of Guided Search Interface
Guided Search: Browse:
• Great for people who have an idea what they • Great for people who are unsure of what they are
want looking for
• Option to do a new and used combined search • The default will include new and used cars
• Advanced options available, i.e. number of seats, • Additional options available, i.e. transmission
power..
44. Results
Features
Indication of Research and
what has been reviews relevant
searched. to your search
Remove to
expand
Sets of
standard Information rich
expanded summary of
refinement results
dimensions
Secondary set
of further
refinement
dimensions
47. Final thoughts
The challenge for designing for guided
search comes down to balancing:
• Users information needs
• Constraints/Flexibility of structured data
• Context for use (search scenarios)
And keeping a complex system simple
48. Media Search
Tale 4/4
Chris Khalil
Senior Experience Architect, USiT
News Digital Media
49. What’s it all about?
1. Homepage is most important page?
2. Content Page
3. Using search to feed search
4. Anatomy of a Content Page
5. Finish
50. Traffic – Last Month
Page Impressions:
94,913,965
that’s a lot of traffic
The home page accounts for
less than half of that
51. From where
Email
Search engines
Blogs
Your Site Instant Message
Other Sites
Social Network Sites
Aggregators