Articles by Category: Search tools

Best bets: a worst practice?

Kas Thomas has raised some questions about the value of best bests in a search engine. To quote:

Not everyone thinks the "best bets" mechanism is a good idea. The problem is that, fundamentally, it's a hack. It's arguably the worst kind of hack in that it involves serious amounts of human intervention. Someone has to create the best-bet database. (Typically there will be hundreds, if not thousands, of best-bet links.) Then the database has to be updated and kept fresh as user needs change and documents are added to or dropped from the system.

Posted by jamesr at 11:25 AM | Permalink
Categories: Search tools

The long tail and short head of search

Avi Rappoport has written about the long tail and short head of search. To quote:

The term "Long Tail" was popularized by Chris Anderson in his book and web site of the same name to describe the successful business model of Amazon and Netflix: offering huge selections of books and DVDs, significantly more than brick-and-mortar stores could ever hope to keep in inventory. Customer demand is expressed by searching, and the Long Tail describes the existence of a surprisingly large percentage of of unique search terms.

Posted by jamesr at 10:42 AM | Permalink
Categories: Search tools

Search usability research findings

Avi Rappoport has written about the search usability research conducted at Open University in the UK. To quote:

Whitney Quesenbery and her colleagues convey the findings of a long study about how search is used at the UK's Open University, She gave a talk at the Enterprise Search Summit, and presented more formally at the Usability Professionals’ Association conference, in June 2008. The study included search log analysis, heuristic reviews, remote and local usability testing on the search user experience, over the course of several years, and they are linked from Whitney's valuable Search Usability page.

Posted by jamesr at 08:31 AM | Permalink
Categories: Search tools, Usability & user-centered design

Fixing appalling intranet search

Gerry McGovern talks about fixing intranet search problems. To quote:

Intranet search is appalling because people don't want their content to get found, and the organization does not value the importance of finding.

Posted by jamesr at 09:28 AM | Permalink
Categories: Intranets, Search tools

A first taxonomy for "search log junk"

Avi Rappoport has written about "search tools junk". To quote:

Search logs contain a lot of weird things, and some of them can have a significant effect on search log analysis. Having looked at tens of thousand lines of search log entries, I offer this first attempt at defining some of the weirdest and least useful kinds of log entry, which I call "Search Log Junk". Here are the types of junk that I've seen most frequently.

Posted by jamesr at 06:33 AM | Permalink
Categories: Search tools

Searching more is not always better

The rise of enterprise search has put an increasing focus on searching ever broader collections of content and documents within organisations.

While enterprise search projects generally start with simple intranet search, attention quickly moves to searching document management systems, collaboration tools, business systems and fileshares.

Underpinning this work is the belief (or hope) that business value will be delivered to users by deploying a more extensive search tool.

Unfortunately it is often the case that searching more is not better than searching less.

This briefing will look at some of the challenges involved in implementing enterprise search, and provide practical tips on how to proceed.

Relevance and value

The fundamental goal of any search tool is to provide users with useful and relevant search results.

Within the enterprise, this means finding valuable information across the many different repositories, sources and systems.

The difficulty is that increasing the amount of information being searched almost always reduces the relevance of search results. Once called the 'Altavista effect', this was seen in the millions of hits generated for any set of terms entered into that search engine.

This is equally significant within an enterprise, and the challenge is to maintain (or improve) relevance as the volume of information grows.

Consideration also needs to be given to user needs and expectations. What types of queries are being entered into the enterprise search, and what sorts of results are expected? Gaining a deeper understanding of these questions helps to shed light on what to search, and how.

[CM Briefing 2008-05, read the full article]

Posted by jamesr at 08:34 AM | Permalink
Categories: Information management, Intranets, James' articles, Search tools

User interface implementations of faceted browsing

Mike Padilla has written an article on the design of faceted browsing. To quote:

Just as it is important to choose the proper knife when slicing-n-dicing vegetables, it is critical to prescribe a suitable user interface to support faceted filtering. Faceted filtering allows you to narrow down a large list of objects to a manageable size by applying flexible combinations of attribute filters in any order. Rather than forcing you down fixed paths within a website’s information architecture, faceted filtering allows you to multi-dimensionally slice-n-dice the information in a manner that best accommodates your specific needs. A user interface that optimally supports faceted filtering must expose its robust functionality in a way that expresses affordances, controls complexity, and follows existing standards that have been pre-established across the web.

Posted by jamesr at 12:13 PM | Permalink
Categories: Information architecture, Search tools, Usability & user-centered design

The importance of being first

Steve Arnold has written a post on the importance of the first page of search results. To quote:

Alex Moskalyuk’s Web log contained a posting on April 10, 2008, that asserted “68 percent of search engine users click on the first page of results.” The story appeared in his Web log on Ziff-Davis’ ZDNet.com site. These data can be tough to find after a few days. Please, access the story and capture the data, which are from iProspect, a unit of the Aegis Group.

Posted by jamesr at 12:55 AM | Permalink
Categories: Search tools

London workers hampered by information graveyards, survey claims

Sara Yirrell reports on a results of a survey into search satisfaction, conducted by an enterprise search vendor. To quote:

According to the results, 59 per cent of workers questioned said the search tools provided by their company were either poor or very poor. In addition, 46 per cent said that information searches within their organisation were 'generic and not comprehensive'.

[Thanks to Steve Arnold.]

Posted by jamesr at 09:44 AM | Permalink
Categories: Search tools

Search behavior & design

Peter Morville has added more images to his Flickr set, relating to search behaviour and design. To quote:

What do we know about user behavior as it relates to search? How can we best illustrate common or interesting patterns of search behavior? And, how do we use what we learn to improve the design of search applications?

Posted by jamesr at 08:59 AM | Permalink
Categories: Search tools

A 12-step program for behind-the-firewall search

Steve Arnold has written an article on a 12-step program for implementing search. To quote:

Step 2. You need to know a great deal about the content you plan to index. You want to know how much content you must index; how much change occurs in the content; how much new content becomes available every day, week, month, and year; access constraints; file types; and special issues such as chemical structures that must be indexed, among other points.

Posted by jamesr at 09:06 AM | Permalink
Categories: Search tools

Search survey

Sue Feldman (research VP, content technologies at IDC) and Michelle Manafy (editor of EContent magazine and conference programmer for the Enterprise Search Summit) are running a survey on enterprise search tool selection.

It should only take 2-4 minutes to complete, and the results will be shared on the Enterprise Search Center and at the Enterprise Search conference. The more information we have on this important topic the better...

Posted by jamesr at 04:11 PM | Permalink
Categories: Search tools

Some general questions (and answers) about site search analytics

Louis Rosenfeld has written an article on site search analytics. To quote:

Knowing what keywords users enter to search in Google, Yahoo! or other web-wide search engines to reach your site is incredibly valuable. It also enables you to fine-tune a keyword ad campaign; perhaps, a campaign that could be designed specifically to draw visitors to your site accordingly. Once users reach your site, however, their needs often change. For many who search the web, the process unfolds in two stages: First, they figure out which site might have the answer to their query. Second, they search within that site for the answer. Because users’ information needs have changed, the data from these two stages of search will necessarily vary. SSA will help you do a better job with that second stage.

Posted by jamesr at 05:00 PM | Permalink
Categories: Search tools

Can social bookmarking improve search?

Daniela Barbosa explores the question: can social bookmarking improve search? To quote:

"Bookmarking Improve Web Search?" includes eleven experiments using del.icio.us designed to evaluate "different aspects of social bookmarking and their impact on web search". The main end results lead to the issue of needing critical mass which is still not here- the paper's authors estimate that only about on tenth of the web has been bookmarked and tagged in del.icio.us and therefore (at least when using only this domain) tagging is not yet ready to make a significant impact on search results.

Posted by jamesr at 10:00 AM | Permalink
Categories: Enterprise 2.0, Information architecture, Search tools

Search patterns

Peter Morville has brought together a collection of search patterns. To quote:

I'm working on a new book (and talk) about the future of search, and I've created a seed collection of patterns and examples to support my research.

Posted by jamesr at 06:00 AM | Permalink
Categories: Search tools

Search behavior patterns

John Ferrara has written an article on search behaviour patterns. To quote:

Search behavior varies with domain expertise and technical knowledge, cognitive style, goal, and mode of seeking. All of these factors will interact in complex ways to influence a user’s actions. Even then, behaviors will vary depending upon whether at that moment the user is under pressure, in a good mood, or any number of other idiosyncrasies.

Posted by jamesr at 05:03 AM | Permalink
Categories: Information architecture, Search tools, Usability & user-centered design

Librarians challenge Web 2.0 myths

The Register has published results of research into web 2.0 and search amongst youth. To quote:

According to a British Library study many of the assumptions made about the Google generation - defined as those born since 1993 - fail to stack up to the evidence.

Among these, that the Google generation are search experts - something labelled "a dangerous myth". "A careful look at the literature over the past 25 years finds no improvement (or deterioration) in young people's information skills" the report said. Also there is no hard evidence to prove the Google generation needs information immediately and that it has no tolerance for delay in getting such data.

Social networking also comes up short. Around seven per cent of students agreed they were "very" or "extremely likely" to use social networking for a variety of tasks such as online discussions or sharing ideas. But the rest, the study concluded, "are not interested".

Posted by jamesr at 08:07 AM | Permalink
Categories: Collaboration, Enterprise 2.0, Search tools

Advancing advanced search

Stephen Turbek has written an article on designing advanced search. To quote:

Advanced search is the ugly child of interface design -always included, but never loved. Websites have come to depend on their search engines as the volume of content has increased. Yet advanced search functionality has not significantly developed in years. Poor matches and overwhelming search results remain a problem for users. Perhaps the standard search pattern deserves a new look. A progressive disclosure approach can enable users to use precision advanced search techniques to refine their searches and pinpoint the desired results.

Posted by jamesr at 06:40 AM | Permalink
Categories: Information architecture, Search tools

Walking up the taxonomy tree at the BBC

Martin Belam has, in the process of writing about some past search problems, explains the search taxonomy at BBC. To quote:

This worked brilliantly, and looked very, very clever on the front-end. So, in 2001 on the BBC's site search, if you searched for 'Seth Johnson', Bromsgrove found the 'Seth Johnson' node, saw there was no URL, walked up the tree and found 'Derby County'. The results returned would then have a best link to BBC Sport's coverage of Derby County at #1. It gave the impression to the user that the search engine understood that Seth Johnson was a Derby County player, and also was probably the best result given the quality of some of the site search results at the time.

Posted by jamesr at 05:59 AM | Permalink
Categories: Information architecture, Search tools

So what makes up a good search on an intranet?

Helen Day lists some questions to ask when assessing how good search is on your intranet. To quote:

• Is a people search available from every page?
• Is content search available on every page?
• Does people and content search each have its own search box?
• Is it in the same place on every page?
• Is the search field on results page ready for the next search?

(This is something that we've written a lot on, and our best practices are contained in the Improving Intranet Search report.)

Posted by jamesr at 03:10 AM | Permalink
Categories: Intranets, Search tools, Usability & user-centered design

Strategies for improving enterprise search

John Ferrara has written an article on improving enterprise search. To quote:

Quality search results only come about through applied effort, requiring in particular the skills of an information architect. And IAs must be ready to go well beyond their traditional front-end role, digging into the functional backend and source data of the search engine. This article outlines how we can bolster findability and win back users' confidence.

Posted by jamesr at 05:40 PM | Permalink
Categories: Search tools

How to professionally manage search

Gerry McGovern has written an article on how to manage search. To quote:

To manage search on your website, don't manage the technology or the content. Manage the task. Success is about finding, not searching.

Posted by jamesr at 10:20 AM | Permalink
Categories: Search tools

How to improve your site's internal search & lift ROI

MarketingSherpa has posted an interview with Martin White on how to improve site search. To quote:

Getting search right is critical to reaching your customers and prospects, but the challenge isn't limited to commercial search engines. The most important searches are often the ones users perform on your own website.

MarketingSherpa data reveals that 43% of visitors who land on a website go immediately to the search function. And customers who use the search box on ecommerce sites convert at nearly three times the rate of general browsers.

How can you improve your internal search features? We asked an expert for his top nine suggestions.

Posted by jamesr at 09:03 PM | Permalink
Categories: Search tools

Searching the whole site

Lynda Moulton has written an entry on how users expect search to cover the whole site. To quote:

However, an organization's intranet portal with a free-standing search box comes with a different expectation. Most people assume that search will find content anywhere in the implied domain, and for most of us we believe that all content belonging to that domain (e. g. a company) is searchable.

Posted by jamesr at 09:07 PM | Permalink
Categories: Search tools

How to improve your site's internal search & lift ROI

MarketingSherpa has posted an interview with Martin White on how to improve site search. To quote:

Getting search right is critical to reaching your customers and prospects, but the challenge isn't limited to commercial search engines. The most important searches are often the ones users perform on your own website.

MarketingSherpa data reveals that 43% of visitors who land on a website go immediately to the search function. And customers who use the search box on ecommerce sites convert at nearly three times the rate of general browsers.

How can you improve your internal search features? We asked an expert for his top nine suggestions.

Posted by jamesr at 01:16 AM | Permalink
Categories: Search tools

Search help and usability

Lynda Moulton has written a post on search usability. To quote:

Two results remain consistent: less than 1% of the searchers place a phrase inside quotations, even when there are multiple words; word are often truncated but do not include a truncation symbol (usually an asterisk, “*”). Both reveal a probable lack of search conventions understanding, a search literacy problem. Here are a couple of possible solutions.

(The design of search is something that I've written a fair bit about, including a previous article and a full report.)

Posted by jamesr at 12:02 PM | Permalink
Categories: Search tools, Usability & user-centered design

IA Summit talk on search analytics

Rich Wiggins and Lou Rosenfeld have published the slides from their talk on search analytics at the IA Summit. To quote:

Rich Wiggins and I presented on search analytics at the recent IA Summit in Las Vegas. The talk was quite popular; it was one of five that attendees asked to have repeated. And in the week or so since we posted it on SlideShare, it's had over 1,200 views and has been favorited 20 times.

Posted by jamesr at 05:30 PM | Permalink
Categories: Search tools

Unanswered search questions: areas for further study

Yesterday I ran a half-day workshop on designing search at the IA Summit in Las Vegas, and today I listened to a talk on search analytics by Lou Rosenfeld and Rich Wiggins.

We are all saying the same things. Namely, to make search work a lot better:

• track most popular searches and failed searches
• check the popular searches yourself, and fix the results if required
• use search engine synonyms
• implement search engine 'best bets'

These are all practical approaches that are easy to implement and they will dramatically improve the effectiveness of search results. (See my earlier article for more on this.)

At the end of the day, these are all very simple (even simplistic) approaches. They cover the basics, but there is still a lot of work (and thinking) to be done before we have really cracked search.

What's become apparent to me is that beyond the basics, we quickly run short of experience and answers, across the whole search industry. There are few practical projects to draw experience from, and what results there are haven't been widely or efficiently shared with others.

So in the spirit of encouraging further research and discussion, here are my big unanswered questions of search (in no particular order):

• How do we understand the context of users' searches? Depending on the context, users searching for 'disposal' may mean completely different things (are they looking for recordkeeping information or garbage bins). These are also called 'ambiguous terms', and they are a real problem to be overcome if search is to work really well. How do we solve this problem?
• How do we blend search and browse? Search vendors offer an incredibly rich set of tools that can be included on search and results pages for filtering, navigating, and refining. When should these tools be used, and how should they be presented?
• How do we process and cluster search usage reports? There are different possible search terms for the same search, but at present the "most popular searches" report simply adds up the number of times the same (exact) search string is used. We need better algorithms for processing, cleaning up and clustering search usage reports, to make them more useful.
• How do we more intelligently match 'best bets'? As above, 'best bets' are typically matched very simply, with a specific search string giving a pre-selected list of matches. As usage of this grows, we often end up not giving any best bets, or presenting too many. What are the algorithms for better matching best bets?
• How should we display best bets? Should we present best bets in its own section at the start of the results, or just as the first few hits?
• How effective are automated clustering tools? Search engines now offer many automated ways of analysing text, providing recommend links, terms and clusters. How well do they work, when should they be used, and how should they be presented?
• How do we create a dialogue between users and search? We know that users often don't get what they want with their first search, but it's proving very difficult to get users to then "work with" the search engine to obtain better results. We know it's not Ms Dewey, so how do we create this dialogue?
• Can we use social software to improve search? Google works very well because of "pagerank", using the cross-linking between sites to improve search. On our sites, and within the enterprise, we don't have this information. Will web 2.0, enterprise 2.0 or social software give us this valuable context to help with search, and if so, how?
• How do we make enterprise search work? While vendors are madly selling enterprise search products at present, the reality is that few (if any) know how to make this work in practice. The fundamental challenge is: how do we determine relevance and give meaningful results when searching across such a wide range of information and formats?
• Are their other good search interfaces, beyond just a search box? There is some experimentation now with a variety of different search interfaces, including "speedsearch" that displays possible search terms while the user is still typing. Which of these new ideas work, and when should we be using them?
• How do we best meet the needs of specialist search users? Specialist search users (lawyers, engineers, researchers, etc) have very different needs from general searchers. Are there "best practices" about how to best design search for these users?

If nothing else, this list may help people to say: "hey, the nifty solution I've been told to implement is on this list, maybe there's some hard thinking to be done". The questions can also be a good foil for vendor over-enthusiasm and feature-obsession...

Note that this is just a list written off the top of my head, and I'm sure I'll think of a dozen more questions before the end of the day. Email me with your big questions, and I'll synthesise all of them into a single list.

Posted by jamesr at 08:18 AM | Permalink
Categories: Search tools

Search doesn't compete with navigation

Within the industry, there is often perceived competition between search and navigation. Do we really need conventional site structures and navigation, or can we replace all that with powerful search?

It has also been argued that search will be the interface. While this statement can be hard to pin down, it talks about making search into the primary interface, via search-based dynamic navigation and the like.

The reality of course is that both search and navigation are needed. I would go one step further to say that you can't have effective search without a good underlying information architecture.

Let's make this really clear with a picture. Imagine our intranet homepage looked like Google:

This is great for experienced, frequent staff. Looking for a leave form? Type in "leave". Looking for the sales figures reporting application? Type in "sales figures reporting".

This is not so easy for new-starters at the organisation:

• What terms do I enter into the search engine?
• What's on the intranet?
• Are there other systems I should be looking on?
• How does the organisation work?
• What are the various functions and business units?
• What terminology is used within the organisation?

Fundamentally, search is great for known item searching, but hopeless at unknown item searching. If you don't know what you are looking for, you don't know what terms to type into search.

While this is a very contrived example, it demonstrates that information architecture and navigation play an integral role on an intranet:

• A good IA is required to deliver effective search results, for without any structure search becomes "garbage in, garbage out".
• Navigation helps people to search for information when they don't know the exact name or the terms to enter into the search engine.
• Navigation exposes what is actually on the intranet (and what isn't).

So the quick summary: you need both search and navigation. They both need to be effective. So let's bury the hatchet, and get on the with the job of making them work.

Posted by jamesr at 09:33 AM | Permalink
Categories: Information architecture, Intranets, Search tools

Why search sucks

At the recent FASTforward conference in San Diego I was interviewed by David Weinberger on why search sucks. It was a pretty amusing interview (but you can judge that for yourself). To quote:

James Robertson of Step Two Designs explains why “search sucks,” and how it can be kept simple and made more effective if the implementers do more work up front.

I was also asked to give a few words on how search has changed my life (or not, as the case turned out to be). If nothing else, my 90 seconds of contribution demonstrates how hard it is to be witty or interesting without preparation... :-)

Posted by jamesr at 07:38 PM | Permalink
Categories: Search tools

Search doesn't work out-of-the-box

Search is broken on many websites and intranets. Search results pages are confusing and cluttered, and users can't easily find what they are looking for. It is tempting to think that this is a technology problem. Certainly, if there is a very old or very limited search engine in place, this will need to be replaced with a modern solution.

The danger, however, is that it can be believed that simply purchasing and installing a new search engine will solve all these problems. The reality is that search doesn't work 'out-of-the-box', and that there is a small (but vital) piece of work needed to design and tune the search engine to make it effective.

This briefing outlines some of the activities needed to make search effective, highlighting key steps that can be completed within just a few days.

Not just a technology problem

Every site (website or intranet) is different, with a unique mix of documents, content and metadata. The nature of searches will also vary, depending on the tasks of site visitors. For this reason, the search engine must be configured to match the characteristics of the site that is being searched. Only when this is done can the search engine return meaningful results.

For this reason, there is no single 'best' way to configure search. Instead, there are key aspects to be tested and refined on a case-by-case basis.

[CM Briefing 2006-02, read the full article]

Posted by jamesr at 06:33 PM | Permalink
Categories: James' articles, Search tools

The enterprise search challenge

Lynda Moulton has written an entry on the enterprise search challenge. To quote:

Can you imagine any single search interface or product from the tools you know that would give you the means to find all of these pieces of information? Can you imagine a single search tool that would answer your query in a couple of simple steps, and able to perform the functions right out of the box? Simple solutions that address the complexity of business variables and technology standards in most organizations make any single solution an unlikely candidate at a reasonable cost.

Posted by jamesr at 08:07 AM | Permalink
Categories: Search tools

Eight principals for good search suggestions

Avi Rappoport has written an article on search suggestions (aka "best bets"). To quote:

Search suggestion systems complement search engine results with human judgement, providing links to specific landing pages for common search terms where the algorithmic results may be confusing or unavailable. (For more information, see my Search Suggestions analysis). This is a list of eight principals to keep in mind when administering a search suggestions system.

[Thanks to Lou Rosenfeld.]

Posted by jamesr at 12:48 PM | Permalink
Categories: Search tools

Search is the big topic

I'm at the Online Information conference in London, and it's clear that the big topic of the conference is search. Almost one-third of the sessions are on some aspect of search, whether it's the public search engines, or enterprise search.

There's a lot of talk about the enterprise space in particular, which is very encouraging. It's clear that information professionals (if not yet others) have rediscovered the importance of search for general business users.

Every second sentence involves "Google" (whether good or bad), which is pretty funny. What is most interesting, however, is that there is a lot of talk about the "future of search": what search will look like, how it will work, what the marketplace will look like.

What has barely been discussed is making search work today. So the talks are long on aspirations, theories and predictions, but still very short on practical advice for organisations looking to improve their current search experience.

This is something that I've obviously written about in the past, and I'm looking forward to seeing more practical advice at future conferences as real-world experiences build up...

Posted by jamesr at 07:44 PM | Permalink
Categories: Search tools

The seasonality of search demonstrated

Rich Wiggins has published details on seasonal search patterns at a large university. To quote:

I spent some time on Saturday reviewing the past year of search queries performed at MSU.edu, the web site of my employer, Michigan State University. It proved a useful way to distract myself while my co-author's alma mater destroyed my Spartans in football.

For quite some time, I've known how seasons affect search needs among an academic institution's searchers. After some seat-of-the-pants manual clustering of queries by topic, the seasonality of search seems to be validated once more. I've color-coded the clusters in spreadsheet snippet below.

Posted by jamesr at 08:00 PM | Permalink
Categories: Search tools

Search analytics survey results

Lou Rosenfeld has published the results of their search analytics survey. To quote:

To help us (Lou Rosenfeld and Rich Wiggins) gather information for our forthcoming book on local site search analytics, we invited 206 people to complete a brief survey. The survey ran from June 12 to July 24, 2006, and received 134 responses ... We've summarized each question's responses by listing the most frequent answers below.

Posted by jamesr at 11:20 AM | Permalink
Categories: Search tools

Searching kills employee productivity

Toby Ward has written an article summarising recent research on search productivity. To quote:

The Center for Media Research reports that professional workers are spending more and more time searching for information. The survey, HotTopics: 2001 vs. 2005: Research Study Reveals Dramatic Changes Among Information Consumers, commissioned by Outsell, reveals that professionals on average spend 11 hours per week gathering information -- up from 8 hours per week in 2001.

Posted by jamesr at 12:09 PM | Permalink
Categories: Information management, Intranets, Search tools

Intranet search questions (Auckland, New Zealand)

Yesterday I ran a one-day workshop on Designing Intranet Search in Auckland, New Zealand. This was a good fun day, with lots of vigorous discussion regarding different search strategies. As part of this, participants nominated their "big search questions", and this is the unedited list:

• Metadata? (vs search?)
• What is everyone doing?
• What makes search work great?
• Ongoing commitment (over 5 years)?
• Folksonomy?
• Looking for specific results?
• Sitemap versus search?
• Spell-checking?
• Separate structured searches?
• Query relaxation?
• Search is only as good as the content?
• How do you prioritise results from multiple source?
• "Correct" results without users thinking?
• Great search results?
• Search statistics
  • how much to capture?
  • what can we gain?
  • 80/20 rule?
• Are the results what the users wanted? (valuable?)
• Advanced search versus simple search?
• What is an ontology?

Posted by jamesr at 10:38 AM | Permalink
Categories: Conferences & presentations, Intranets, Search tools

Nine ways to fix intranet search

Search is often the greatest source of frustration on intranets. Irrelevant results, hard to read results pages and 'untitled document' entries plague many intranet searches.

With the size and scope of most intranets, search is a key tool used by staff to find information. While the expectation is that it should be quick and easy to find information on the intranet, this is often not the case.

Beyond generating staff frustration, these problems can reduce trust and confidence in the search tool. More broadly, the issues with search may be having a significant impact on the usage of the intranet as a whole.

This article therefore outlines nine steps that can be taken by all intranet teams to improve the effectiveness of search. References are made to previous articles that outline specific steps in greater detail.

Not a technology problem

On the whole, this is not a technology problem. Most modern search engines provide more than enough functionality for corporate intranet sites. The problem is that in too many cases, the search is simply installed 'out of the box', and then left untouched.

This default installation is rarely effective, and there is a modest amount of tuning and design work that is required to deliver a solution that matches the specific characteristics of the intranet being searched.

This article focuses on these design steps, and assumes that the currently-deployed search engine can be made to work much better without having to be replaced.

[May KM Column, read the full article]

Posted by jamesr at 11:09 AM | Permalink
Categories: James' articles, Search tools

Presentation: Gilbane San Francisco 2006

I gave a presentation today at Gilbane San Francisco on "Improving intranet search", covering some of the key points on how to address the design and implementation of search for intranets (and indirectly, websites). You can download my presentation:

Improving intranet search (PDF, 721kb)

Posted by jamesr at 12:20 PM | Permalink
Categories: Conferences & presentations, Search tools

BBC reports users lose patience with poor search

Jared Spool has written a blog entry discussing BBC results on search, extending the discussion with his own research results. To quote:

No results are the worst offenders. When studying users using on-site Search, we saw, when shopping for clothes, they abandoned their shopping 55% of the time queries returned no results. For shoppers of Books, CDs, and DVDs, they abandoned 100% of the time they encountered a no results screen. In almost all cases, what they were shopping for was on the site, so the sites lost the sales because their search didn’t work effectively.

Posted by jamesr at 10:40 AM | Permalink
Categories: Search tools

Obtain search in your CMS?

Organisations are looking for a wide range of capabilities when selecting a new content management system (CMS), and search is often one of the desired features.

Almost every site requires a search tool, whether it’s a website or intranet. In most cases, there is frustration with the current search, leading to the desire to bundle search as part of the new CMS solution. The question is: how good are the search capabilities built into CMS products, and when should you make use of them?

Three possibilities

There are three main ways in which search functionality can be obtained when purchasing a content management system:

• The CMS has search built into the package, developed in-house by the CMS vendor.
• A search tool is licensed by the CMS vendor, and tightly integrated into the overall solution.
• A third-party search engine is implemented separately, either purchased from the CMS vendor or obtained elsewhere.

Each of these possibilities is discussed in the following sections.

[CM Briefing 2006-05, read the full article]

Posted by jamesr at 09:40 AM | Permalink
Categories: Content management, James' articles, Search tools

Identifying missing trigger words from search logs

Jared Spool has written a blog entry on identifying trigger words from search logs. To quote:

Our research has shown that on most (not all) sites, only about 14% of search queries are issued from the home page. The vast majority of queries come after visiting lower level pages, such as galleries and content pages. From this, we infer that many users are making a stab at trying to find what they are seeking by using the categories and links. Only when the scent trail dries up do they turn to Search.

Posted by jamesr at 07:57 AM | Permalink
Categories: Search tools

Does search need to be in the upper right?

Jared Spool has written an article that asks: does search need to be in the upper right? To quote:

Under the brilliant guidance of Barbara Chaparro, the students at Wichita State’s SURL are one of the top web research teams in the country. Recently, in a paper entitled Where's the Search? Re-examining User Expectations of Web Objects, A. Dawn Shaikh and Kelsi Lenz revisit a previous study where they looked at user's expectations for certain standard features of a web site, such as the "Back to home" link, the search box, the "About this site" link, and advertisements.

Posted by jamesr at 01:53 AM | Permalink
Categories: Search tools

Feedback on Improving Intranet Search

We've started getting some positive feedback on our recently-released Improving Intranet Search report, which is always nice:

As James observes in the introduction to this 115 page report, the inadequacies of search may be doom an intranet as a whole to failure. After all, if staff can't find information on the intranet when they need it, will they even come to the site in the first place. Over the last few years I must have seen several hundred intranets, and in virtually every case the search functionality was poor. I have just been looking at a new intranet where the search functionality does not provide stemming on plurals, so that a search on 'complaint' produces a different set of documents to 'complaints'!

All too often the effort seems to have gone to adding content to the intranet, with significant investments in CMS software and information architecture. Search is seen as an afterthought, and purchased separately with whatever remains from the CMS budget.

Search is now being seen as a crucial success factor in intranet implementation, helped by the vigorous marketing of the Google Search Applicance. This excellent report is therefore very timely, and as with all of the author's reports it is full of very practical guidance and the presentation is faultless. The approach taken is to set out two personas, one for a specialist searcher and one for someone with little search expertise, and then compare the value of various elements of a search engine, especially the way that hits are displayed on the screen. This works well, and shows the benefits of personas at the same time.

The report opens with a section on evaluating search engines, and the process of selecting a new search engine. However most of the report is taken up with advice on refining the search interface (12 pages), refining the search results (24 pages) and search engine tuning/usage logs (25 pages). The report concludes with sections on usability testing and the importance of allocating adequate staff resources to search engine optimization.

I found virtually nothing in the report I would disagree with, but there are perhaps a few areas that might be expanded in a second edition. The report stops at search screen management and I would have liked to see a comment on how to locate a search term within a document, for example by highlighting the term, or providing a few lines of text to show each occurrence of the keyword in context. The aim of any search is to find information, and not just a document. I would also like to have seen more discussion about metadata issues, especially synonym management, and the problems of intranets that contain content in more than one language.

Overall though this is a report that every intranet manager should have in their document collection. It is readable, authoritative, and encapsulates search best practice. It should also be required reading by search engine vendors, most of whose public web sites demonstrate a depressing lack of commitment to search excellence.

Martin White, Intranet Focus

Posted by jamesr at 10:32 AM | Permalink
Categories: Search tools

A red card for intranet search

Yesterday I ran a free afternoon session on Improving Intranet Search in Canberra. To get people warmed up, we provided each participant with three sheets of coloured paper, as follows:

• Red: their intranet search is terrible
• White: their intranet search is OK
• Green: their intranet search is great

I then got everyone to hold up their sheet of paper, and this was the result:

Sorry for the blurry, low-resolution photo taken on a mobile phone. But the results are still pretty clear:

• Red: 50%
• White: 50%
• Green: 0%

Pretty funny, but not surprising. As was expected, not a single person held up a green sheet of paper to say that their intranet search was great.

This is why we published the Improving Intranet Search report. We are also running free sessions in Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth.

Posted by jamesr at 10:41 AM | Permalink
Categories: Search tools

Launch of Improving Intranet Search report

I'm excited to announce the launch of the Improving Intranet Search report, the latest of the best-practice guides released by Step Two Designs.

Organisations are now recognising that search is a critical business tool, on their intranet as well as on their websites. More than just a way to find documents, intranet search can directly support staff in their day-to-day work.

The answer is not to automatically replace the search engine currently in place, as most of the modern search products provide more than enough functionality. Instead, the problem is that few search solutions have been effectively designed, in terms of the interfaces provided to staff and the behind-the-scenes improvements needed to make the search work like magic.

Even a few days devoted to improving search can have significant impact. If resources are then allocated to steadily maintaining and enhancing search, it will not take long to deliver an extraordinary search solution.

This 115 page report contains:

• key principles of effective search
• nine step methodology for improving search
• two search 'personas' describing common search users
• guidelines for improving the search interface for general and specialist users
• guidelines for enhancing search results
• options for search engine tuning
• introduction of search usage reports
• exploration of search engine synonyms and 'best bets'
• summary of advanced search techniques
• screenshots and tips throughout

All of the core design guidelines and enhancements contained in this report are within reach of every intranet team, and do not require in-depth technical knowledge or unlimited budgets.

[Full report details]

Posted by jamesr at 01:26 PM | Permalink
Categories: Intranets, Search tools

Surveys to assess search experience

Lou Rosenfeld has posted a blog entry on using surveys to assess search. To quote:

A colleague asks: I'm looking for a list of survey questions that can be used to help assess users' search experiences. I need guidance on how to develop a formal, more quantifiable survey.

At first glance, this seems to be such a sweet, innocent question. And if you know of any good examples, please post some links below. I couldn't come up with any off the top of my head.

This was my comment:

Compared to the other techniques, surveys are a much less effective option. While they can be used to reach a large number of staff, it is difficult to construct questions that gain meaningful information about search behaviour.

Most problematically, staff will find it extremely difficult to recollect or describe how (or how often) they search, or the types of information they were looking for. Without this information, anything collected during a survey is unreliable at best, or misleading at worst. For this reason, the use of surveys is not recommended as a method of understanding search behaviour.

In general, we would always recommend field research (interviews, contextual inquiry, workplace observation)...

Posted by jamesr at 01:48 PM | Permalink
Categories: Search tools

Search should work like magic

Thanks to Google, intranet users expect to be able to type in a word (or two) and find the page they are looking for, preferably in the first few results. This is not an unreasonable expectation. At the most fundamental level, search on an intranet is supposed to make it quick and easy for staff to find things, thereby saving them time and improving their productivity.

This can be distilled down to a very simple concept: search should work like magic. As much as is possible, search should always give staff the information they need, somewhere in the first few results. Staff should not have to learn complex search options, or spend time carefully considering the most effective search terms and options. Regardless of what the user is searching on, the right results should be returned.

Usage patterns

With some exception, the goal of most staff when they are searching on an intranet is to quickly find a single piece of information. They are not looking for all of the information on a given topic, just the one page that gives them the answer or fact they need.

In practice, users give search little consideration. They are generally not willing to devote any significant time to learn how to best use the search capabilities, but instead expect the search to 'just work'. While most modern search engines provide many powerful features, few staff know how to use them.

[CM Briefing 2006-01, read the full article]

Posted by jamesr at 10:27 AM | Permalink
Categories: Search tools

Upcoming book on search analytics

Lou Rosenfeld and Rich Wiggins are writing a book on internal site search analytics, and they've asked for some help. To quote:

We'd been casting about for good sidebar material, and Rich had a fantastic idea: ask webmasters to list their site's most frequent 20-100 searches--and how many results each retrieved--for inclusion in the book. Then ask the webmasters to include a brief interpretation of the most interesting (or bizarre) aspects of those common searches (e.g., "I think the reason users keep searching for SKU numbers is..."). If we use your information, we'll mention you and thank you in the book.

This is a great way to get your name in lights, and some credit for all the hard work managing your site...

Posted by jamesr at 08:19 AM | Permalink
Categories: Search tools

Managing 'glue' at the BBC

Martin Belam has written a fascinating article on the behind-the-scenes glue that holds the BBC together. To quote:

We have an editorial process that puts 'best links' at the head of our search results pages. There is a very good reason for doing this. Across the site we have 'scoped' collections of the search index. For example if you are on the Radio One site and you search you will only get organic results back from the confines of the Radio One site. This limits our users to being able to explore little silos or sub-sets of the BBC's content. If you've navigated to that point, and know that you are looking for something on Radio One, then you will get the right results. However our search log analysis tells us that many people use search because they have navigated down a blind alley, haven't found what they wanted, or have navigated to where they expect to find the information and have failed. If you think back to how complicated the BBC is as an organisation, and that a lot of our content is presented to the public on our own organisational terms, then you can see the scope for users to fail to find the correct area when they are navigating is huge.

Posted by jamesr at 10:29 AM | Permalink
Categories: Content management, Information architecture, Search tools

Good search is knowledge management

One of the key goals of knowledge management is to ensure that staff have the information they need, at the time they need it. What has often been overlooked is that effective search can play a key role in meeting this need, beyond just allowing staff to 'find stuff'.

Implementing a good search solution can help knowledge managers build their understanding of staff needs, can raise the visibility of key information, and can help staff to better understand what they are looking for. These uses will be explored in this briefing, with the overall goal of prompting knowledge (and information) managers to take a second look at search.

Mundane search

Search is often implemented as a 'second thought' within organisations. First the intranet or document management system is installed, and then search is added to help users 'find stuff' within the growing repository of information.

In many cases, search is deployed out of the box, with little (or no) extra effort put into customising or improving its effectiveness. Worse, no attention is given to the search on a month-by-month basis. This 'mundane' search provides only modest value to the organisation. Worse, poor search can be a major cause of staff frustration.

[CM Briefing 2005-21, read the full article]

Posted by jamesr at 12:31 PM | Permalink
Categories: Intranets, James' articles, Knowledge management, Search tools

Search sucks, but could it be any other way?

Let's face it, search sucks in most organisations. But could it really be any other way, as things current stand?

Taking a step back for the moment, the question is worth asking: even if an organisation is committed to delivering a good search experience, exactly how are they going to achieve this?

There are few resources and sources of assistance that an organisation can call upon when designing and implementing search:

• The right search vendor is chosen, to match the organisation's needs. So far, so good.
• The search engine comes in a shrink-wrapped box, with an install CD, and some technical documentation.
• The default install of the search engine is terrible, unusable, over-laden with features.
• Nothing in the search engine documentation talks about how to design the solution. There are no examples, samples, case studies or methodologies. Just a lot of under-the-hood technical configuration details.
• Most search engine vendors provided very limited (or no) professional services to support clients in designing good solutions (except for those vendors who offer products that can't work without professional services).
• There is almost nothing written about how to design good search, whether articles, case studies, reports or books.
• There are few consultancies that provide professional services around the design of search (as distinct from product selection).
• In many cases, organisations are entirely unaware that there is even work that needs to be done to make search work, beyond just installing the software. Primarily, because no-one told them.

So how are organisations supposed to find out how to deliver good search?

From where I stand, this lack of support and resources is one of the key reasons for the poor usability (and usefulness) of search. Clearly something needs to be done. While it is beyond the scope of this blog entry (and my thinking) to propose a complete solution, here are a few practical steps that could be taken:

• Much more needs to be written about designing search, by as many people as possible.
• Vendors should publish case studies, talking not about why a client selected them, but what the client implemented (and why).
• The default (out-of-the-box) configuration of search engines should be improved.
• Vendors should include in their manuals more about designing search, the business benefits, and the methodologies that can be used.
• Vendors should become more client-centric, in both their sales and implementation processes.
• Organisations need to start setting aside a little bit of time and money to design the search solution, beyond purchasing the software.
• The industry as a whole should start talking about how search is designed and implemented, with the goal of identifying some "best practice" approaches.

Posted by jamesr at 11:50 AM | Permalink
Categories: Search tools

A swiss army knife, closed

In a recent article on the beauty of simplicity, Marissa Mayer of Google is quoted as saying:

"Google has the functionality of a really complicated Swiss Army knife, but the home page is our way of approaching it closed. It's simple, it's elegant, you can slip it in your pocket, but it's got the great doodad when you need it. A lot of our competitors are like a Swiss Army knife open--and that can be intimidating and occasionally harmful."

I like this analogy a lot, and I think it has a lot of relevance for intranet search as well. The fundamental principle is: don't expose users to complexity up front, but make it available when they need it...

Posted by jamesr at 09:09 AM | Permalink
Categories: Search tools

Search engine 'best bets'

Much can be done to improve the quality of search results. No amount of tweaking of metadata or search configuration will, however, ensure that the most relevant results always appear at the beginning of the list.

This is where search engine 'best bets' come in. These are a hand-created list of key resources for common queries, and they can dramatically improve the search experience, particularly on information-rich sites such as intranets.

Presenting best bets

In the screenshot shown, the staff member has searched for 'organisational structure'. The first section highlights the intranet page 'CSIRO organisational structure'. Below that, the rest of the 4821 matching search results are presented, most of which just include the words 'organisational structure' somewhere in the page.

[Read the full article.]

Posted by jamesr at 05:08 PM | Permalink
Categories: Intranets, James' articles, Search tools

The psychology of search

John S. Rhodes has written a series of articles on the psychology of search. To quote:

Search is a killer application on the web and in the enterprise. Perhaps it is the killer app. Therefore, by definition and practice, it is a success story. At the same time, however, no one has explained search. That is, no one has explained the fundamental nature of search. Where is the psychology behind search? And quite seriously I ask, What is search?

Read the full series:

• Chapter one
• Chapter two
• Chapter three

Posted by jamesr at 04:58 PM | Permalink
Categories: Search tools

Improving Intranet Search (Sydney, August 31)

Just a quick reminder that it's only about 3 weeks until the free afternoon session on Improving Intranet Search, being held in Sydney on 31 August 2005.

We've had over 65 registrations so far, and expect to meet (or exceed) 100 participants on the day. If so, that would make it one of the biggest gatherings of intranet folk in Sydney this year, and therefore a not-to-be-missed networking opportunity.

While it's completely free, we do need people to register before the event so we can ensure sufficient catering.

[Full event details]

Posted by jamesr at 03:21 PM | Permalink
Categories: Search tools

Recent trends in enterprise search

Stephen Arnold has written an article on the recent trends in enterprise search. To quote:

Search within an enterprise is a different problem, and often does not work as well as employees want. Enterprise search follows a different path that leads into a swamp of business language, security, changes to data, and computer systems. In fact, enterprise search is a misnomer because no organization with sane management wants all of its information searchable.

Posted by jamesr at 03:43 PM | Permalink
Categories: Search tools

Search log analysis and the long tail

Lou Rosenfeld has written a blog entry on search log analysis. To quote:

Search log analysis (SLA) is a rational attempt to make sense of these distributions by focusing on those most popular queries. Finding patterns among the popular queries helps us determine how to best allocate resources for improving the search experience. We might, for example, decide to develop best bet search results for the 100 most common queries, and see if we need to plug content gaps for those top 500 queries that retrieve 0 results. In IA terms, a little of this type of effort can go quite a long way.

Posted by jamesr at 06:39 PM | Permalink
Categories: Search tools

Search experts: who? what?

Lou Rosenfeld has written a blog entry that discusses who are the search experts in the industry, and what they should know. To quote:

I'd love to know who else is out there (please comment below), but perhaps I'm barking up the wrong tree. Has search grown into such a broad domain that asking for a "search expert" is as silly as looking for a "telephone expert"? Do search engine vendors wield enough power to drown out the independent voices? What exactly would a search specialist be anyway?

Posted by jamesr at 04:22 PM | Permalink
Categories: Search tools

What to include in intranet search results

The first of my CM Briefings for July looks at what to include in intranet search results. To quote:

While there is much that can be done to improve the effectiveness of intranet search, a good starting point is to improve the design of search results pages. The first question to ask is: what to include (and what not to include) in search results?

This briefing is designed to provide a simple checklist that can be used to assess (and then redesign) intranet search results pages.

Posted by jamesr at 06:49 PM | Permalink
Categories: Intranets, Search tools

Free industry briefing: Improving Intranet Search (Sydney)

As part of our ongoing efforts to bring intranet teams from different organisations together, we'll be presenting a free industry briefing in Sydney on improving intranet search. This will held on 31 August 2005 at the Mercure Hotel in Sydney, conveniently located next to Central station. Topics covered in the afternoon session include:

• best-practice design of search and result pages
• simple versus advanced search
• synonyms, taxonomies, and 'best bets'
• search engine usage reports
• 'tuning' search engine configuration
• selecting appropriate search tools

Note: numbers are strictly limited, and all participants must register in advance. Book now to avoid missing out on this unique afternoon!

Full event details (186k PDF)

Posted by jamesr at 08:59 AM | Permalink
Categories: Area Health Service project, Book & product reviews, Collaboration, Conferences & presentations, Content management, Design & usability guidelines, Document & records management, E-learning, Enterprise 2.0, Information architecture, Information management, Interface design, Intranet Leadership Forum, Intranets, Intranets, James' articles, Knowledge management, Metrics & ROI, Photos, Search tools, Search tools, Usability & user-centered design, Web development, Weblogs, XML

Searching questions

Andrew Swartz has written a brief article outlining some guidelines for effective search on sites. To quote:

On the web, people love to search . . . which is why it’s so painful to see that so many sites have terrible search functions. The search box sits there at the top of every page luring unwary users. And users fall for it, only to find themselves trapped like a fly in a pot of honey.

Posted by jamesr at 10:44 AM | Permalink
Categories: Search tools

Enterprise search still a technology conversation

Peter Van Dijck has written a blog entry looking at the state of enterprise search, and how well key features such as "best bets" are implemented in commercial search tools. To quote:

In short, best bets (where an editor can select the top results for certain search queries) is seen by many information professionals as about the cheapest and best way to improve your search engine, but the enterprise search industry doesn't have much of a clue. Many enterprise search products don't explicitly support this. More generalized, most companies seem to think of search as a technology problem, whereas most of the consultants and experts understand the importance of adding people to the mix.

Posted by jamesr at 07:14 PM | Permalink
Categories: Search tools

Fine tuning your enterprise search

Martin Belam has written an article on fine-tuning enterprise search, based on his presentation at the recent Online Information conference. To quote:

The result of this is the necessity to fine tune your enterprise search system once it has been implemented. You may imagine that to fix this you need to be a search engine boffin in the classic mad scientist mould, with banks of computers and multi-coloured liquids bubbling over Bunsen burners. However, the truth is somewhat less romantic, and it means placing an emphasis on the people in your business rather than the technology. By understanding their requirements and their behaviour better you can provide a better and more efficient service.

Posted by jamesr at 08:36 PM | Permalink
Categories: Search tools

Using search log analysis to predict the future

Lou Rosenfeld has written a blog entry on using search logs to predict future interest. To quote:

If a company name shows up with great frequency in the search logs but hasn't been covered recently in FT articles, it may indicate a developing story about to hit daylight. Guy finds that this sort of anomaly is often a useful predictor of what the FT should consider covering in the coming days. Conversely, if a company name drops off the search logs, interest in a related story line may be waning, and FT can choose to invest its reporting resources elsewhere.

Posted by jamesr at 08:43 PM | Permalink
Categories: Information architecture, Search tools

CMS Watch publishes Enterprise Search Report

CMS Watch has just announced the launch of a new product: Enterprise Search Report. To quote:

Written by longtime search guru Steve Arnold, the Report provides a comprehensive overview of enterprise search solution providers and best practices. The bulk of the report entails 10- to 20-page comparative evaluations of 28 enterprise search solutions. Like other CMS Watch offerings, the Report does not rank "best" vendors, but instead details the strengths and weaknesses of the various players, isolating vendor tendencies and identifying their suitability for different use cases.

If this is as good as Tony's The CMS Report, then it will definitely make for interesting reading!

Posted by jamesr at 01:19 PM | Permalink
Categories: Search tools

The optimal layout of search result pages

Henrik Olsen has written an article on the layout of search results. To quote:

The authors of this article have studied the optimal layout of search result pages. Their findings suggest that categorizing search results improve users' performance significantly.

Posted by jamesr at 09:37 AM | Permalink
Categories: Search tools, Usability & user-centered design

IA Heuristics for Search Systems

Lou Rosenfeld has written some excellent heuristics for search systems. To quote:

Another day, another project, another set of IA heuristics. A client asked me to kick the tires of their search system, so I decided to expand on the search aspects of the information architecture heuristics that we came up with a couple weeks back.This time, I tried to align and categorize these guidelines with some common steps users take when searching a site.

Posted by jamesr at 09:40 AM | Permalink
Categories: Information architecture, Search tools

It’s not just about searching -- it’s about findability

Martin White has written an article on findability and searching. To quote:

It would seem that the search engine industry would have a vested interest in promoting the effective use of search technologies within the context of findability, but I have to say that in my view, most search vendors' provide fairly lightweight white papers, and their own Web sites provide poor examples of site design. Often the vendor's own search engine seems not to have been optimized to search the site. Perhaps this is why the delegate numbers at the Enterprise Search Summit were so high.

[Thanks to InfoDesign.]

Posted by jamesr at 10:28 AM | Permalink
Categories: Information architecture, Search tools

8 Quick Ways to Fix Your Search Engine

Jeffrey Veen has written an article on fixing your search engine. To quote:

Our finding, not surprisingly, is that almost every site's search engine could use improvement. We also found that most organizations' Web teams couldn't really affect the quality of their search results -- they were stuck tweaking search technologies that had already been purchased and installed. Often, the most dramatic change they could make was in the design of the search and results interfaces. In some cases, as the old saying goes, this was like putting lipstick on a pig. But cleaning thin