Searching for information

• Size, complexity, and disorganization of the web makes search engine performance critical, and "search" one of the most popular links on most web sites.
• Scope of the search needs to be clear: whole site, section of the site.
• Research on search effectiveness, User Interface Engineering - 23% of users fail on first search attempt, 44% on second attempt, 50% on third attempt, 100% on fourth attempt. Therefore, delivering relevant search results on the first or second try is important.
• Organization, description, and redundancy of the search result links contributes to usability.
  ... Check fidelity.com for search results.
• Supporting information helps the visitor judge the relevance of the search results.
  ... Infoseek is a good example.
• Natural language search engines are getting attention but lack good usability.
  ... Try out AskJeeves.

References:
Spool et al., Web site usability: A designer's guide, 1999.
Nielsen, Designing web usability, 2000.
User Interface Engineering, Articles and resources, 2002.

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