Column: Search Matters

In Part I of “Design Patterns for Mobile Faceted Search,” I looked at the challenges and opportunities of mobile faceted search. To address the well-known challenge of limited screen real estate on mobile devices, I covered the Four Corners, Modal Overlay, Watermark, and Full-Page Refinement Options design patterns, which maximize the real estate available for search results on a mobile device. This month’s column covers strategies for making people more aware of the filtering options that are available to them, as well as methods of improving transitions between the various states a user encounters in a search user interface. Read More

In search results, the old adage a picture is worth a thousand words rings true. When it comes to making your search results more efficient to use, more relevant, and more attractive, images reign supreme. There is simply nothing else on your search results pages that can come close to offering the same potential as thumbnail images for dramatically increasing your conversion rates and revenues.

While your Web site’s image requirements are likely unique, there are some common pitfalls you might encounter in using images in your search results. The good news is that you can easily avoid most of these mistakes with awareness and a little foresight. Read More

When designing the data and layout for search results pages, the design strategy boils down to a single key principle: show the greatest number of results possible, without increasing pogosticking. In other words, the challenge is finding the right balance between

1. providing enough information in individual search results, so customers can make informed decisions about whether to view product detail pages—that is, click product links
2. providing enough relevant search results on each page of results to warrant further exploration of the site

On the one hand, if your search results do not provide enough summary product information, you’ll force your customers to jump to individual product detail pages, then repeatedly back and forth between product detail and search results pages, like a child bouncing on a pogo stick. On the other hand, if you do not provide enough search results on each page of results, customers may not find relevant results, so may leave your site. As we will see presently, the tension between these two opposing design forces is what makes the problem of creating search user interfaces so interesting. Read More