Search Behavior Patterns - Boxes and Arrows: The design behin...

Search Behavior Patterns by John Ferrara on 2008/01/30 | [0 Comments] A search engine on an organization’s website or intranet is often built to support an overly narrow model of user behavior, which goes something like this: * User types in a search * Search engine gives back matching results * User reads the results and picks the best one Simple. Better still, it asks very little of the user interface—only that it provide some way to submit a search, and some list in response. However, such simple models overlook the fact that humans are complex, convoluted, capricious, mutable, moody, multifaceted beings with broadly differing backgrounds, competencies, and frames of reference. (1) In practice, this can make the requirements for search interfaces quite a bit more complicated. The good news is that while users vary widely in the ways they search, their behaviors follow a limited number of identifiable patterns. By examining the factors that cause variability in user behavior and considering personas that illustrate those variations, we can identify common search behavior patterns and the interface affordances that support them. Factors that affect user behavior Search behavior is the result of interplay among several independent factors the user brings to the search operation, six of which are described below. Designers have no more control over these than they have over the color of the user’s hair. 1. Domain expertise User behavior has a lot do to with a user’s familiarity with the subject on which he or she is searching. When searching outside a domain of expertise, people will be less certain where to start, use less precise language, and have more difficulty evaluating search results. By contrast, experts in a field generally know what verbiage will work best, and so generally get better res

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