Website search function Analysis: What to improve your search experience

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Search is ubiquitous, with its shadow on every Web site, browser, application program, and platform. Search was born in the era of Internet information explosion to meet the needs of users to quickly find the target message, the form can be very simple but the database and the implementation of technology has a special high requirements.

Search innovation is not easy, but it is not impossible. This paper first analyzes the characteristics of the search user requirements, and introduces the form of search, and then discuss some possible ways to improve the search experience.

Understanding Search

I. About Users

The purpose of the user search is obvious, in order to find the answer information. Users at this time may know what they want, such as searching for a download link to the 33 days of lovelorn, a situation known as a project search. Users may not know exactly what they want, such as the search for a good movie as a pastime, which is called exploratory search. The search behavior patterns of these two scenarios are not the same, but they also have a strong purpose: the user is not interested in playing the search tool itself, eager to immediately find the information and answers that meet their requirements.

Fast forward fast out, is an ideal form of search, but also the desire of users.

Ii. Forms of Search

Y search box

The search box has become a search flag. Search box is the user search the entrance, but also the question of the problem area, but also the search engine command execution area.

Search box color, shape and size, different sites have different styles.

The box is small, but it is very learned. In order to explain to the user what type of keywords can be entered in the input box, the search box can use "placeholder text", such as the search box on the first page of watercress.

Figure 1. Watercress Home Search box using placeholder text

Users are not always able to spell the search keywords correctly, at this time your search if you choose to do nothing, then very likely to be users think your product is not smart enough, not smart. Google identifies the correct spelling in red when it encounters a spelling error, and does not erase your right to go wrong:

Figure 2. Google search to automatically correct the keywords in the box

Users not only spell errors easily, but also often can't think of what to enter specifically. If the search box can automatically fill in the input process, and provide associated search suggestions, you can avoid user input errors, but also save the user's spelling time (which is more needed on the phone side).

Figure 3. Taobao offers real-time search advice

Y search Results

The content and presentation of the search results are different depending on the platform and the different product types. The search on Flickr is a picture, and a search on Weibo can get microblogging information, and search the App Store for a list of apps.

The search results page is much more learned. To do Internet products, we often explore the "paradox of Busy users": Users are busy, there is no time to travel through your complex information castle. Therefore, the search results page is best to streamline design details and think twice about your search strategy. This involves the trade-off between precision and recall, which is the relationship between the two. Gao Chazhun rate, and keyword matching degree is very high, you may miss a lot of valuable information, Gao Chaquan rate, the approximate results are pushed to the user forced them in a variety of good, bad information screening, time-consuming and laborious.

In the existing search technology environment, Gao Chaquan rate and high precision is difficult to balance, at this time you need to find out whether your users prefer part of the relevant search results or more like all relevant search results.

In addition, the strategy to use to further filter the search results is also a matter of consideration. For example, in a video search site or application, you can filter the search results by restricting the country, type, and Language options. Search for images in Google, you can further filter the relevant search results by color, size, type, and other options.

Figure 4. Google Image Search can filter search results by color and size

The above mentioned search box and search results function form is more mature, it is easy for users to type search keywords, reduce the user's information filtering costs. The details of how many real-time search suggestions to make, how to use historical search advice, and how to filter your search results need to take into consideration factors such as the level of background database construction, the specific objectives of the product, and the system platform that hosts the product.

The following analysis focuses on several search strategies that can significantly enhance the search user experience.

Several ways to improve your search experience

The pearl-shaped growth strategy

Simple introduction: "Bead-type growth" is a unique strategy of ductility search, English professional vocabulary: Pearl growing. Search for a good document, mining its content and metadata into search terms and clues, continue to look for similar search results; We may need to look for papers with similar themes, may need to find the same director's film, or need the same style of music files.

This search strategy has been used well in a number of websites or applications and has brought convenience to users. You're not going to graduate. Search papers, Google Academic search in each article search results below have "related article" option. Click on the related article page, the same author of similar topics in the list of academic papers, different authors and similar topics of the academic papers are followed; and there is still a related article option underneath each search result on this page. Therefore, once the searcher finds a good paper, it can easily obtain a series of search results of the same author or similar subject, which embodies the convenience and intelligence of the "bead-type growth" strategy.

Figure 5. Google Academic Search each search results have a "related article" option

Soso Music Search also uses the "Bead growth" strategy. Music single search results accounted for the vast majority of the page, the right side of the small area to the user recommended to the search key related to the music album.

Figure 6. Soso Music Search Page

Music Search is a typical field that applies to the "Bead growth" strategy. You can also recommend singles by the same singers, or you can recommend them in similar style (such as "cheerful", "sad", "campus"), and you can also recommend similar types (such as "local Music", "Piano", "Rock"). The recommended form can be done very entertaining, very interesting, so that "bead-type growth" strategy for users to bring unexpected convenience and fun.

Advantages: To provide users with more intelligent ductility search results, for users to bring unexpected "clues" type of surprise; If you use this search strategy on your shopping site, you can play a significant role in boosting sales.

Question: The "bead growth" strategy of the search results of how much page space to show the ability to neither affect the general search of the main position and can play a good role in the proposed effect? The way to show is also a design point that needs careful consideration. #p # subtitle #e#

Ii. Visual Search

A brief introduction: Visual Search, is based on Web2.0 technology developed a new Internet application. Unlike Google and other popular search engines, the resulting search results are not a simple link address and text profile, but all the whole page or picture, flash and other views of the form presented. Visual search is a collection of interesting and practical search engine technology, and once again supporting the "one picture wins thousand words" This classic truth, favored by users. Visual search with unique advantages to attract a lot of wind investment gold, the development momentum is rapid.

Microsoft Bing Visual Search

Microsoft Bing Visual Search can be done relatively early, but also done better. In the search results page of the tourist attractions, the tourist information of each scenic spot is displayed to the user in the form of pictures, when the mouse is floating in the picture, the name of the attraction, the type of tour, the appropriate season and so on are presented. The following figure:

Figure 7. Bing Tourist Attractions Search results page

At the same time, Bing Visual search also supports the horizontal contrast of multiple tourist attractions. Comparison page of tourist attractions The main information are: the name of the attraction, the picture of the attraction, the type, the best time to visit, the current time, the hotel information, the weather information, the tourist attractions details, activities and photo display. The vast amount of information in a simple and clear visual design to present, giving the user intuitive, image of the impression of the horizontal contrast can also help users quickly in a number of travel destinations to make choices. The following figure:

Figure 8. Bing Tourist Attractions Landscape contrast page

Spezify

Spezify's creators use "inspiration search" to describe it, which means that the results provided by search engines are instructive and divergent. Spezify search results are images and video fusion of rich media visual form, picture and video combination of patchwork, seamless, page can roll up and down the screen, giving a rich sense of search results. When the mouse floats in the picture, the bottom of the picture shows a brief description of the picture. Perhaps search results can not be very targeted to solve the user's problem, but search results may be effective for users to solve the problem to provide inspiration. The Spezify Visual search page is shown in the following illustration:

Figure 9. Spezify Visual Search Results

Spacetime

Spacetime's visual search results are cooler and the center of the screen displays a single search result (which can be a Web page, image, Wikipedia or YouTube video), and the content that has been displayed fades away until it disappears and the content that is not displayed is gradually getting closer. The overall search results page has a sense of three-dimensional and depth, and huge display space for users to quickly filter each search results. The spacetime Visual search results page is shown in the following illustration:

Figure 10. Spacetime Visual search Results

Advantages: Visual Search, the realization of the visual expression of information, information more intuitive, more interesting form. Compared with the existing search results, visual search has a refreshing feeling, with traditional search unmatched advantages, known as the next generation of search.

Problem: The efficiency of search and visual search intuitive to some extent mutually exclusive. How to make the search results information more intuitive and interesting to display to the user, while minimizing the impact of search information and search efficiency, is worthy of the designer to try to figure out the problem.

Third, social search

Brief introduction: The social element to the entire internet world influence is more and more big, the search domain is no exception. Social elements can penetrate the search results page, the formation of operational search results, to support the user's comments, evaluation, tagging, sharing; At the same time, social elements of a certain result of the formation of praise, add classification or label can be the search engine algorithm to consider the factors, the ranking of search results have a certain effect.

Digg

Digg is an article polling site, it is unique in the absence of professional website editing, editing all depends on the user. The user can submit the article at will, then the reader to determine whether the article is useful. On the search results page, each piece of news supports users in the following actions: digging, commenting, saving, and burying. When the number of excavations reaches a certain level, the news will appear on the home page or other pages, and if the number of burials reaches a certain level, the news will disappear in the news list. Digg site with the help of the vast number of users hard work, automatic organization of the fittest news information, and then for the masses of users back to the popular hot news content. The Social Action page for Digg news listings is shown in the following illustration:

Figure 11. The Social Action page for Digg news listings is shown in the following illustration

Flickr

Searching for pictures on flick is easy, and is largely due to social manipulation. Each image allows the user to mark "Favorites", find all sizes, share multiple SNS sites, and look for similar images or other pictures of the same source, album, or picture pool. In addition, Flickr encourages users to add tags, comments, and comments. This information can be cumulative to search metadata, making the search behavior more convenient in the future. The social search page for Flickr is shown in the following image:

Figure 12. Flickr's social search #p# subtitle #e#

Advantages: Socializing can narrow the distance between the search and the user, help the search engine to complete the search results of the self-organizing filter and sorting. Adding comments, tags, and notes to search results facilitates the search for information, and social and searchable elements form a virtuous circle.

Question: Is your information attractive enough to call on users to participate in your socialization, too little social involvement is almost meaningless; how social elements are set and set, and how much the user practices and potential needs to use your product, and whether or not you are fully technical ready for social infiltration into search algorithms.

Iv. Mobile Internet search

Brief introduction: Mobile platform is the fastest growing platform in history, but also a very interesting platform. The narrow space of the screen, the difficulty of inputting the soft keyboard and the shaking of the usage situation, become the shackles of the traditional search. But when we set the microphone, horn, GPS, accelerometer, magnetometer and multi-touch interface together, we also redefined the search feasibility. The following is a brief list of typical search details and forms for mobile platforms.

Smart Suggestions for input

Low input efficiency is one of the most difficult problems of mobile platform, so it is necessary to give users approximate matching in the process of input. Can not only save the user to type the operating costs of keywords, but also to give users a constructive sense of words recommended, the human nature of times.

Speech Intelligent Search

Voice search is also a way to overcome the inefficiency of mobile platform input, and voice search is the only appropriate search method in some search situations, such as song search. The following image is SoundHound (Chinese: Hunt Cutchie) Voice Song Search interface:

Figure 13. SoundHound Voice Song Search interface

Photo Search

More and more mobile phone with the camera function, many businesses began to aim at this application, trying to use the photo function of the offline material and online merchandise information together. Users encounter their favorite objects in life, you can take a photo, use the photo to search the relevant information on the Internet. This kind of search method is quick, practical, and can continuously add the unexpected pleasure to the life.

Geographically based search

GPS positioning can help users to determine their geographical location, based on geographical search to provide users with nearby gas stations, restaurants, banks, the geographical location, simple introduction and praise and other information. This type of search is often combined with mobile maps to provide a guide for people unfamiliar with the surrounding environment. Getit local Search app is such a product, the interface as shown in the following image:

Figure 14. Getit Local Search App interface

Sensor based Search

In addition to text, voice and pictures, the input form of the search can also detect the Earth's magnetic field, air pollution, heart rate and glucose content of human body with the aid of sensors. Sensors enable us to search beyond our own senses, and can combine rich interfaces to create smarter, more convenient search products.

Search based on Accelerometer

Accelerometer has a lot of magical applications, rotating mobile phones can view the panorama of photos, shaking a mobile phone can be emptied of the current content, lift the phone can perform a search, a flip phone can send search results information to your friends. Gesture interaction search means that a new search experience is coming.

Advantages: Mobile Internet search is more diverse, search input form can be text, voice, image and induction information, the search process due to the gravity acceleration and gesture interaction to become lively and interesting, search results can include geo-location information rich media interface. A new search pattern is starting with the mobile Internet.

Problem: How to minimize the inefficiency of input and the narrow space of search results is the core difficulty of mobile Internet search.

Summary

The existing search experience does not really meet the needs of users for information retrieval, from form to content has great development potential. Bead-Type growth strategy provides users with more intelligent ductility search results; Visual search realizes the visual expression of information, the information is more intuitive, the form is more interesting; social interaction can help search engine to complete the search results of self-organizing screening and sorting, promote the information searchable; mobile internet due to voice, photography, geographical positioning, The addition of new elements such as sensors gives the search a new possibility.

Original address: http://thinkingrain.lofter.com/post/3f64_54c87