This link has been bookmarked by 18 people . It was first bookmarked on 31 Aug 2006, by Trisha Gao.
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08 Jun 11
Mikel MadinaSearch is one of the most important user interface elements in any large website. As a rule of thumb, sites with more than about 200 pages should offer search. Guidelines for search include:
a search button on every page (Update: search should be shown as a box, not a link, according to my newer studies on search usability.)
global search (searching all of the site) is better than scoped search
boolean queries should be relegated to a secondary "advanced search" page -
08 Jan 11
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29 Aug 09
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09 Oct 07
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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 have to search for the search, so it should be right there on the page. This means any page, since you can't predict when users will give up navigating and look for the search button.
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I warn against scoped search since 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 a wrong subsite, meaning that they will never find it in a scoped search. Other times, users don't realize where they are and the scope of their search, so they may think that they are searching the entire site or a different subsite than the one they are actually in.
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I recommend minimal use of scoped search and no use of Boolean search in the primary search interface. Advanced search is fine if offered on a different page than the simple search. The advanced search page can provide a variety of fancy options, including Booleans, scopes, and various parametric searches (e.g., only find pages added or changed after a certain date). It is important to use an intimidating name like "advanced search" to scare off novice users from getting into the page and hurting themselves.
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31 Mar 07
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- a search button on every page (Update: search should be shown as a box, not a link, according to my newer studies on search usability.)
- global search (searching all of the site) is better than scoped search
- boolean queries should be relegated to a secondary "advanced search" page
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27 Jan 07
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31 Aug 06
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Our usability studies show that 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 do not have an inherent preference.
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Despite the primacy of search, webdesign still needs to 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 get to a page through search 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 rare that a single page holds all the answers or even that the search found the most relevant page, so users need to see related pages.
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Search should be easily available from every single page on the site.
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restricted to search that subsite only
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by explicitly recognizing the concept of quality in addition to relevance
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by offering synonym expansion
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Boolean search should be avoided
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use an intimidating name like "advanced search"
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incorporating spelling checks
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02 Mar 06
Peter CruickshankSearch is one of the most important user interface elements in any large website. More than half of all users are search-dominant, about a fifth of the users are link-dominant, and the rest exhibit mixed behavior. Webdesign still needs to grounded in a st
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28 Apr 04
Are Halland"Our usability studies show that 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
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