Shahar Hesse — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 10:58:39 GMT

Thanks for the tips, are these the results of user testing specifically on these designs? I’m asking because there seem to be a couple points that are usually discouraged in usability design that you’ve chosen to include in the examples i.e.

1. Use of a horizontal link menu – usually suggests a trip to a different page more than displaying options in the current location. Alternatively they might be expected to sort the results (as the same words do when they appear along the top of the results table).

2. Drop-downs menus – widely used for ‘advanced’ search, but if the aim is to encourage non-advanced users, wouldn’t steering clear of these be a good idea?

Did you find that these points were not significant to the users you tested? If so, it could have larger implications along the lines of what Jonathan Baker-Bates comments about.

Boxes and Arrows: Comments by Shahar Hesse