#14211
Are There Users Who Always Search?
Web designers often tell us that they spend a great deal of their limited time and resources working to improve their on-site search engines because, they believe, there are some people who always rely on the search engine to reach their target content. They find further support for this assumption from Jakob Nielsen who, in his book, 'Designing Web Usability,' asserts that more than half of all users demonstrate 'search-dominant' tendencies by going right to the search engine when they first visit a web site looking for content.
User Interface Engineering (2002). Design>Web Design>Usability>Search
#32064
Creating Usable, Search Engine Friendly URLs
There are many reasons to use mod_rewrite to create informative, useful URLs for your website. Most dynamic websites use some form of PHP or ASP to pull the data from the database and often times use that data in the URL as a string. This is not only a potential security flaw, it also gives the user and search engine alike a very uninformative destination for your website.
Robbins, Kyle. ReEncoded (2008). Articles>Web Design>Search Engine Optimization>Usability
#21034
Designing a Search People Can Really Use 
The challenge of finding the right information at the right time has grown with the Web. The information superhighway is larger and more crowded than ever, and individual sites are also larger and more complex. With this explosion in the sheer volume of pages, finding the information you need is harder than ever. Search engines have always held out the promise of solving this problem, but they are often a usability disaster area. Inaccurate results, cluttered search entries, and a narrow focus on technological capabilities are only a few of the issues that make search features so difficult to use.
Quesenbery, Whitney. Intercom (2003). Design>Web Design>Search>Usability
#22376
Search result pages must make information easy to find and present results in a format that is easy to use.
Bohmann, Kristoffer. Bohmann Usability (2000). Design>Web Design>Usability>Search
#24837
Enhance Usability by Highlighting Search Terms
Google's cache offers users a copy of your website with their search terms highlighted. You can do the same thing and make it easier for users to find what they’re looking for — whether they're coming from an external search engine or your own site search — by making their search terms easy to spot.
Suda, Brian and Matt Riggott. List Apart, A (2004). Design>Web Design>Usability>Search
#21087
People using Microsoft's Internet Explorer are now being redirected to Microsoft's MSN when they make certain kinds of mistakes. This means that Microsoft is taking control of another part of the user experience. This article discusses how Google might be able to help users and solve a few other problems others along the way.
Rhodes, John S. WebWord (2001). Design>Web Design>Usability>Search
#25098
Home Stayers And Trench Diggers
This paper offers some observations on the ways 9 to 12 year children search for information on websites and how this may differ from the search behaviour of adults.
Hudson, Roger. Usability.com.au (2002). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Search
#26548
How to Improve Your Site Search (...or ‘looking for jamie oliver’)
Site search engines should always allow for common user errors. By taking these errors into account, users should be able to always find what they're looking for through the site search.
Fidgeon, Tim. Webcredible (2005). Design>Web Design>Usability>Search
#24158
Index Versus Full-text Search: A Usability Study of User Preference and Performance 
This article reports on the results of testing two versions of an information product, Usability Testing and Research: one version, an Adobe Acrobat Reader e-book with an index with the locators hyperlinked to the page reference for each entry; the other version, the same e-book without an index, but with the full-text search capabilities provided by Acrobat Reader. We first summarize the current literature regarding human indexing and information retrieval by machine (search engines). We then describe the methodology for testing, the testing results, our conclusions, and implications for future research.
Barnum, Carol M., Earvin Henderson, Al Hood and Rodney Jordan. Technical Communication Online (2004). Design>Web Design>Usability>Search
#19758
Information Foraging: Why Google Makes People Leave Your Site Faster
The easier it is to find places with good information, the less time users will spend visiting any individual website. This is one of many conclusions that follow from analyzing how people optimize their behavior in online information systems.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2003). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Search
#14624
The author offers advice on choosing the most appropriate search engine, as well as a list of tips for using search engines.
Archee, Raymond K. Intercom (2000). Design>Web Design>Usability>Search
#14206
People Search Once, Maybe Twice
Lately, we've been focused on the effectiveness of Search. When looking for content, users often end up using the search engine. In a recent study, we observed that users only found their target content 34% of the time with Search (less than with categories). We wanted to know why.
User Interface Engineering (2002). Design>Web Design>Usability>Search
#31128
What bugs me is not the results of the major search engines, but the results of internal web site searches.
Rockley Group, The (2008). Design>Web Design>Search>Usability
#26633
Search engine users click the results listings' top entry much more often than can be explained by relevancy ratings. Once again, people tend to stick to the defaults.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2005). Design>Web Design>Usability>Search
#14682
Leonard-Wilkinson describes how Web site designers can take advantage of the features of search engines to advertise their sites.
Leonard-Wilkinson, Theresa A. Intercom (2001). Design>Web Design>Usability>Search
#28343
Many Web sites allow users to search for information contained in the site. Users access the search capability by entering one or more keywords into an entry field--usually termed a 'search box.' When there are words in the Web site that match the words entered by users, users are shown where in the Web site those words can be found. Each page of a Web site should allow users to conduct a search. Usually it is adequate to allow simple searches without providing for the use of more advanced features. Users should be able to assume that both upper- and lowercase letters will be considered as equivalent when searching. The site's search capability should be designed to respond to terms typically entered by users. Users should be notified when multiple search capabilities exist.
Usability.gov (2006). Design>Web Design>Usability>Search
#23919
This article addresses common aspects of search, including scoped, Boolean and advanced searches.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (1997). Design>Web Design>Usability>Search
#14797
Search Engine Optimization: Designing a Search-Friendly Site
In this article, the third in a series, Leonard-Wilkinson offers tips on how to make Web sites friendly to search engines.
Leonard-Wilkinson, Theresa A. Intercom (2002). Design>Web Design>Usability>Search
#14760
Search Engine Optimization: Keywords That Work
Leonard-Wilkinson demonstrates search engine optimization, a process for making Web sites attractive to search engines.
Leonard-Wilkinson, Theresa A. Intercom (2002). Design>Web Design>Usability>Search
#14789
Search Engine Optimization: Making the Most of META Tags
Leonard-Wilkinson offers advice on how to write effective TTLE- and META-tag descriptions.
Leonard-Wilkinson, Theresa A. Intercom (2002). Design>Web Design>Usability>Search
#20995
Typically, users know what they’re searching for even before they choose a search engine over the site’s navigation. In this investigation, I’d like to explore how we can provide a user interface to help them search more effectively before they get started. This investigation is about the ordering and structure of the search fields themselves, not the results, which have been the topic of much discussion already.
Danzico, Liz. Bobulate (2003). Design>Web Design>Search>Usability
#19344
Simplify and Sort for Better Searches
Nothing matters more to your Web site's success than a good search tool. More than 50 percent of visitors to a Web site head straight for the search button, according to Web site usability expert Jakob Nielsen. You may feel your Web site's logical layout obviates any need for a search tool, but chances are a first-time visitor won't agree. Even if it's a paragon of elegance and efficiency, too many users have been traumatized by poorly organized Web sites to even try browsing anymore. Users are task-focused and want to find specific information as fast as possible. That means using a search tool.
Peterson, Constance J. Smartisans (1997). Design>Web Design>Search>Usability
#13663
Three Ways to Improve External Search Engine Usability
In web log analysis, two things are often missed. First, how the link to your site is presented in the results is critical. Next, what are visitors experiencing once they select that link? Many sites spend significant resources ensuring high placement in search engines, but usually little effort is spent on designing how those results are displayed and whether the pages they point to will help the visitor achieve their goal. With on-site search engines, it is easy to control the way results are presented to visitors, provide similar search suggestions, and ensure that the results are relevant and helpful. This is more difficult with external search engines, but not impossible. Here are some thoughts as to how to evaluate the usability of results on search engines and improve their effectiveness and relevance.
Lash, Jeff. Digital Web Magazine (2002). Design>Web Design>Search>Usability
#26872
The Truth About Google's So-Called "Simplicity"
Anybody can make a simple-looking interface if the system only does one thing. If you want to do one of the many other things Google is able to do, oops, first you have to figure out how to find it, then you have to figure out which of the many offerings to use, then you have to figure out how to use it.
Norman, Donald A. uiGarden (2006). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Search
#25099
Usability: A Key Issue for Kids' Sites
The children starting primary school this year can be truly described as the first of the web generation, for all were born after 1992 when the World Wide Web as we know it today came into existence. The ability of web sites to stimulate and satisfy the needs of these kids, along with those of all other web users, will largely depend on web site usability.
Hudson, Roger. Usability.com.au (2000). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Search
