The Search Box is an indispensable part of a website, especially large
ones that contain several number of pages. Apart from primary and
secondary navigation, the Search is an important navigation medium that
lets users find instant and precise information with the least number
of clicks. Internet users, by virtue are an impatient lot and therefore
would not care to browse through the various pages of your website to
find information. They will just look for the Search tab and if they
don't find it, they'll just choose to leave.
That is why it is
very important to devote quality time and design a user friendly
Search. Here are some tips to design Search features and deliver
effective search results.
Provide Relevant and Timely Search Results
The two important features of effective search results are – Relevancy and Timeliness.
Relevancy
is very important to ensure usable search results. The results of the
search should be relevant to the search query that is entered. If the
results are not relevant, users would not be able to find solution or
acquire information that they need to. Efficient searches are
characterized by highly relevant results.
Timeliness is another
features of efficient search results, especially when it concerns the
internet and the web. This is because users are generally interested in
the latest news and happenings so that they can be up to date with
their industry.
Also, allow your visitors to sort the results by
relevancy and timeliness so that they can get information according to
their requirements. This is especially useful in websites that have
many updates on regular basis.
Refine the Results
There
are cases when search results provide too much information that it
becomes difficult to find data that is actually required. This is a
common case with e-commerce website, social networking websites etc.
because the results can fit into more that one category. For example,
if you run down a search for someone on networking websites, you would
get a list of users, communities and groups, or even links to content
that has that particular word. Thus, it is important to allow users to
refine the search results so that they can find what they exactly need.
Provide Multiple Fields
Generally
searches consist of a search tab where users enter a query and are
provided with the results. However, there may be cases when you would
need to know more details about their concern in order to get them
relevant results. Therefore, provide them with multiple fields that
they can fill out or choose from a drop down menu, in order to specify
their query . However, filling these additional fields should be
strictly optional and not a necessity
Offer Visuals
While
this is not mandatory, it can help if you provide visuals along with
your search results. This may not work with your regular information
based website but can work exceptionally well on e-commerce websites
where users are searching for a product and they get to see a snapshot
alongside the results. This will make it easier for them to find what
they are looking for.
