Jessica McMillen || User Experience Architect || Usability || User-centered Design || Atlanta

Mar 2006
Last week, at a CHI Atlanta meeting, I had my first opportunity to hear Jared Spool. He spoke about his company’s research into designing for user “scent.” He believes users track information like they do prey, a pursuit during which they experience a subconscious sense of moving closer or further in relation to their target. It is an interesting theory I enjoy mulling over while I should be doing my school work or looking for a job.

In the course of his talk, he asserted that despite claiming to prefer a website’s search capabilities, users will always engage a site through its navigation if their trigger words are in the labels. Scanning for their trigger words first, users will only resort to the search capability if those words aren’t found. He said this behavior is like “creating their own links.” Very astute. However, I have not found this same order of behavior in my (very limited by comparison) observations. Many times, users with a specific goal do not scan the page but go right to the search function. I haven’t studied this theory, but I believe it highly depends on the success each user has had in the past achieving his goals using search on a variety of websites. The experience has probably been pretty poor. Let’s face it, the quality of search functions across websites varies widely. A common approach is to use a preexisting script that produces a page that doesn’t look like the rest of the site with results that don’t seem to make much sense. When did anyone think it was a good idea to let users write their own SQL query?

I believe users would choose search if it provided better results. Search is something users are very comfortable doing on the web. What, again, is Google all about? Do people use Yahoo categories? I need the stats, but I assume not nearly as much as they use the search box to find the content they’re looking for. Otherwise Google would use categories.

I liken using a search function to enlisting the assistance of a sales clerk to help me find a specific item in a large store. Stick with me here. Think of entering a store like Target or Home Depot. Under what circumstances do you seek out a sales clerk to help you find something? I suggest there are four factors: goals, constraints, past experience, and familiarity. How targeted is your goal? Do you just want a broom or are you open to other dust-fighting mechanisms? Do you have other things on your list? The resource constraints you’re operating under such as time or patience play a role. As does your past experience with sales clerks in that specific store as well as stores in general. Also, you take into consideration your familiarity with the layout of that specific store and stores of the same type. What if you aren’t sure what the “thing” you’re looking for is called, but can describe it. What if you know what it is but have no idea what category or section it falls under? No one expects to log onto homedepot.com and find a link for caulk right on the homepage; neither would you expect to walk into the store and find a big sign indicating which aisle caulk is on. But, I don’t know which category it falls under or which aisle it should be on. I have no reasonable trigger word, and I know that. So, where do I go? The sales clerk or the search box.

Jared says people spend more money and time shopping when using categories. I believe him, but people also spend more time and money when they are forced to walk through the winding maze of trinkets for sale on the way to the register at Frye and Best Buy. It doesn’t mean they are happy doing it. I think achieving user happiness requires respecting users with less time and money to waste and helping them achieve their goals efficiently.

So, I propose we stop using cheap scripts that produce crappy search results on our websites just so we can check it off on our heuristic evaluation. When I figure out the best way to do this, I’ll write about it.

Oh, and if I type “caulk” into the search box at homedepot.com, I find that it caulk is categorized under paint supplies. This is baffling to me because I don’t want to paint my tub. I experienced the same surprise when I asked the store clerk where it was when I walked in the store. However, the search results are clear and in context.