Interactive design: User's information search behavior and site content matching

Article Description: Four kinds of information search requirements do not reflect all, but most of the user search behavior will still fall in these four kinds of requirements, all Web site designers, in the site's search information architecture, should consider the information needs of the target users, for each type of users to design different information matching methods.

Recently in improving the site's search system, many users in the use of the site's search function, some information can not accurately match, or even error matching, such as a user wants to search Huangshan Hong Cun's attractions information, he entered the search box in the word, the search results are presented in Jingdezhen Yao Li Gu village. There are a number of reasons for the search mismatch, including user error input, site resource constraints, Web site information search framework, site search matching permissions.
From the point of view of the designer of the website, the way to match the information is to satisfy the user's search demand. At present, the main information matching the site is keyword matching, according to user-provided keywords, matching keywords in the site, the final rendering of search results, and sometimes the site for commercial interests, may be the priority to match their settings matching content, provided a bunch of useless information to the user, damaging a certain user experience. In order to improve the information matching degree and the user experience, should study the user's information search behavior, and then set the information matching way, today mainly said the user's information search behavior, the website information matching way continues to pay attention to.
What kind of information needs do users have?
As a child, the teacher often told us the story of monkeys breaking corn, said a monkey down the mountain saw a large area of corn, broke a corn hold in the bosom, continue to go before, and saw the watermelon, picked a big watermelon, throw the corn, continue to go before, and saw the sesame, and then threw the watermelon ... Here said that monkeys break corn is not to say half-hearted, but to understand our users what kind of monkeys? Do they know what information they are looking for?
The general website will be the user's search behavior is divided into four kinds: deterministic search, exploratory search, no omission of search, repetitive search.
Deterministic Search
What is a deterministic search? Give me an example of life, this weekend I want to go to the market to buy a carp home braised, crucian carp is I go to the supermarket certainty of demand, I to the crucian carp and this is very familiar with the markets, to the water market, find a sell crucian carp, pick, weighed, pay, and finally go home. Deterministic search, the user usually knows what to look for, what rank to call it, and where to find it.
Exploratory Search
Sometimes the user is not sure what to look for, may just look for some reference information or hope that the site can provide advice, exploratory search is usually endless, users do not expect accurate results, he can not express or do not want to express his specific needs, may be aimlessly wandering on the site, If a Shanghai user intends to have a weekend tour plan in December, the best tourist destination is the surrounding city, he will see the site has no special topics, suddenly he saw when the season hot recommended-Nanjing Tangshan Hot Springs, changed his search direction, he wanted to know about the hot spring tourism, He will carefully search the site on the Tangshan Hot springs information, including ticket prices, scenic Area introduction, line conditions, hot springs and so on, due to the previous did not know the hot spring health, may he to the hot spring health deep search. For the consumer Web site, exploratory search for the content resources of the site is higher, the information provided to the site to help users, and enable users to make purchase decisions, and ultimately improve the conversion rate of the site.
no missing search
When the user needs every information, it is in the search without omission, every stone wants to flip. As a tourist intending to visit Zhouzhuang, he wants to search for any information about Zhouzhuang, in order to search all the information, he will construct keywords in different ways, such as he will be patient to use "Zhouzhuang" "Zhouzhuang Tickets" "Zhouzhuang price" "Zhouzhuang scenery" "Zhouzhuang Hotel" "Zhouzhuang Route", Users with no missing search have enough patience to filter and collect information, a bit similar to the usual we do competitor analysis, so the site operators should be from many angles for the user matching information, and for the user reasonable classification information, more information on the site matching, user information search behavior (ii) will be discussed in detail.
Repetitive Search
Ebbinghaus, a famous German psychologist, had raised the human memory curve, people's memory is always limited, the information will fade away from the brain for a period of time, until slowly forget, so people always go to find the useful information before, such as the user on Amazon saw a book that was very interested to read, may have to be busy with other things, forget the next purchase, a few days later remembered the book, but the title is forgotten, at this time users need to search again, if the site can leave a history for users, help and prompts the user has browsed the information, just Amazon site can write down the user's every operation, When users log on to the site again, the site will kindly prompt the user's last browsing information and recommend relevant information to users, how thoughtful site ah.
Summary
Four types of information search requirements do not reflect all, but most of the user search behavior will still fall in these four kinds of requirements, all Web site designers, in the site's search information architecture, should consider the information needs of the target users, for each type of users to design different information matching methods.