Boxes And Arrows : The Design Behind the Design

Article Idea:

Site search usability

suggested by Adriana Iordan on 2006/08/24

• Accuracy and relevance.
  Always show the most relevant results at the top of the search list. Place results that match all keywords before results that match single keywords. If results are from different categories found on your website, offer product links and product images. It’s imperative to provide a sufficiently descriptive title and page extract to ensure that the user understands what lies at the other end of the link. The customer needs appropriate written and visual information to decide if he wants to buy a product.


• Synonyms and related terms.
  If no matches were found for the original query, show results for identical or related terms, whenever possible. Most users aren’t willing or able to refine their query.


• Misspelled search items.
  This is one of the main reasons why the search feature returns no results. Provide useful matches and show the misspelled search term alongside the correct spelling. Allow plurals, common abbreviations and hyphenations.


• Generate statistics for the most frequently searched keywords.
  Find out the most frequent keywords that appear in search options, and focus your selling strategy on those products that are the most popular among users. Also, keep track of the pages where your users resort to search most often, to analyse if the content may not be clear enough.


• Sort and filter results based on mixed specifications.
  Clients want to find specific products on your website. They are interested in price, brand, color, size, etc. Offer them the possibility to sort the list based on one or more attributes.


• No result found.
  Set up a special page to be displayed when the search does not find any matches. If no results were found, provide tips on how to reformulate and expand the search. Explain why no matches were found for a specific query and display the term. On the same page include a search box for users to enter new search without having to return to the previous page.


• Provide advanced search options
  You can also provide advanced search options to help potential clients find what they are looking for. Suggest appropriate actions -using the singular or plural, verifying the spelling, related terms, links to different categories on your website, etc.

Read full article about search site usability.