The video of the talk is available at http://bit.ly/1CSYUqM

1. Instant Search API
Instant Search API
Alexandre COLLIN
Customer Solutions Engineer
alex@algolia.com
@alexandrecollin
Office Hours - April 13th 2015
Leveraging Search to Build an Engaging UX

2. Instant Search API
Introduction (2min)
State of the Art of Search (20 min)
How to build a Instant Search and Navigation UX? (20 min)
- Instant Search Result page
- Multi-category Autocomplete
Questions & Answers (20 min)
AGENDA

3. Instant Search API
WHO I AM?
Product
Marketing
Software
Engineer
Traveler +
Freelancer
Customer Solutions Engineer
My scope includes
• Build prototypes
• Provide Technical support
• Provide implementation guidance from
the User Experience POV
• Share best practices among our
community
• Ensure that our users are successful

4. Instant Search API
Dec 2013 Mobile offline Search SDK
Jan 2014
Nov 2014 Distributed Search Network
Oct 2012 Creation by 2 Search Veterans
Sept 2013 Hosted API Release
ALGOLIA’S IDENTITY CARD
E-commerce
Other
+500 customers
in +45 countries
Today it’s
A team in Paris
& San Francisco
We're Hiring
Medias

5. Instant Search API
STATE OF THE ART OF SEARCH

6. Instant Search API
TWO TYPES OF SEARCH
Site search / mobile app searchWebsite & document search

7. Instant Search API
HOW DOES SEARCH LOOKS LIKE ON POPULAR WEBSITES?
Ikea.com
CNN.com
Amazon.com

8. Instant Search API
SEARCH HAS BECOME A CRITICAL UI / UX ELEMENT
2001 today
People start their web sessions with a search engine 88% of the time.
Nielsen Norman Group 2004
43% of users jump immediately to the search function after landing for the first time on a website Marketing
Sherpa 2007

9. Instant Search API
Half a second delay
caused 20% drop in traffic
Every 100ms of latency
costs them 1% in sales
SPEED MATTERS

10. Instant Search API
RELEVANCE IS CRITICAL
The lack of relevance and results (typo-tolerance, synonyms
support) creates disappointment to the user.
=> Pogo sticking problem
- Bad User Experience
- High bounce rate & Investments in SEO/SEM get lost

11. Instant Search API
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TYPO-TOLERANCE IS A MUST HAVE!
The 594 ways people type Britney Spears (Google data)

12. Instant Search API
What’s true on Desktop is even more true on Mobile
Need of Instant is amplified
“ 55% of consumers using mobile
to research want to purchase
within the hour. ”
Source: Nielsen & Google, Mobile Path to Purchase
Five Key Findings, November 2013
WHAT ABOUT SEARCH ON MOBILE?
“Fat finger effect”

13. Instant Search API
Backend elite required
Requires a lot of skills (hosting,
scaling, coding, tuning, …) and
there is not enough experts on
the market.
Inaccessible to
UX designer/developer
Relevance is an important part of
UX and is inaccessible to UX
team.
Time gets out of control
A lot of iterations and tuning are
required to reach a correct quality.
BUILDING A GOOGLE-LIKE SEARCH UX IS TOO HARD
Resulting in a poor search experience

14. Instant Search API
Ultra-fast search API
Most results computed in under 10ms
Up to 200x faster than the competition.
Exceptional user experience
on any device
Designed for search-as-you-type UX.
Rich features set
Typo-tolerance, geo-search, all
languages support, analytics, etc.
First class security
Fine-grained access control, even in
javascript.
Available in 12 data centers
Full response time under 50ms in most
parts of the world.
Highly available
SLA of 99.99%
Algolia relies on a high-end feature set to deliver its value to
the End-Users and Developers
ALGOLIA’S VALUE PROPOSITION

15. Instant Search API
UX BUILT USING ALGOLIA’S API

16. Instant Search API
SPEED LEADS TO MORE ENGAGEMENT
- Search depth increased by 60%
- Mobile sessions with search jump 250%
- Bounce rate decreased by 17%
- Increase in their average order value by 12%
- Increase in their conversion rate 9%
- Increase of the search volume by 5
- Visitors who use search view 3 time more pages per session
and spend 6 time longer

17. Instant Search API
HOW EASILY IMPLEMENT AN INSTANT
UX?
Search & Navigation

18. Instant Search API
HOW DOES ALGOLIA WORK?
Import your data
using an API client
Customize Ranking
& fine tune results
Build Search UX
on Desktop & Mobile

19. Instant Search API
API CLIENTS: Backend VS Frontend
JDBC MongoDB
Backend API Clients
+ Connectors
Frontend API Clients
…
+ Framework integrations
+ CMS integrations
+ UI components
• Components for FB React
• Twitter Typeahead
• Select2
• ..
…

20. Instant Search API
INTEGRATIONS WITH FRAMEWORKS, CMS, …
https://www.algolia.com/doc/integrations

21. Instant Search API
TWO APPROACHES / ARCHITECTURES
Backend
implementation
Frontend
implementation

22. Instant Search API
BENEFITS OF THE FRONTEND APPROACH

23. Instant Search API
LETS DO IT!

24. Instant Search API
QUESTIONS / ANSWERS
Instant Search API
Alexandre COLLIN
Customer Solutions Engineer
alex@algolia.com
@alexandrecollinOffice Hours
Don't wait! Try Algolia now!
www.algolia.com