E-Commerce User Experience Vol. 5: Sea rch (Including Faceted Search) Based on eyetracking, user testing, and diary studies
3rd Edition
By Amy Schade and Jakob Nielsen
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Report Authors : Amy Schade, Jakob Nielsen
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Table of Contents Summary of Research Studies and the E-Commerce Report Series ...............4 E-Commerce Report Series .......................................................................................................... 4 Research Studies ........................................................................................................................4 Study One..............................................................................................................................5 Study Two..............................................................................................................................5 About the Third Edition ............................................................................................................... 6
Search Behavior ............................................................................................7
Why Users Search ...................................................................................................................... 7 What Users Search For .............................................................................................................. 10 Query Length ........................................................................................................................... 13 Search Success ........................................................................................................................ 18
Elements of Successful Search .................................................................... 20 Supporting Search.................................................................................................................... 20 Knowing How to Search............................................................................................................. 20 Presenting Search Results ......................................................................................................... 21 Narrowing the Choices .............................................................................................................. 22
Guidelines List .............................................................................................24 Search Visibility ..........................................................................................26 Supporting Users’ Searches ........................................................................38 Advanced and Scoped Searches ..................................................................60 Presentation of Search Results ...................................................................65 Sorting Results .......................................................................................... 102 Narrowing Product Choices: Guided Navigation or Faceted Search ...........105 About the Authors .....................................................................................147 Acknowledgments .....................................................................................148
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Summary of Research Studies and the E-Commerce Report Series E-COMMERCE REPORT SERIES This report is one of 13 reports about the E-Commerce user experience. Ten of the reports in the series were generated from the findings of two rounds of e-commerce research studies. The first editions of these reports were published as a book, with each chapter also available as a downloadable report. The second and third editions include an additional report, based on the same series of studies, about customer service. This series also includes three volumes which are a result of additional research studies, separate from the main e-commerce research. These reports are included in the series due to their direct relationship to the e-commerce user experience and cover the topics of wishlists and gift certificates, store locators, and confirmation and transactional email messages. Each of these reports includes a section about methodology, covering the details of each research project. The entire E-Commerce User Experience series is available for download at http://www.nngroup.com/reports/ecommerce-user-experience/ and includes the following titles: 1. General User Behavior & Executive Summary 2. Homepages and Category Pages (including Product Listing Pages and Product Comparisons) 3. Product Pages (including Reviews) 4. Shopping Cart, Checkout & Registration 5. Search (including Faceted Search) [this report]
6. Customer Service 7. Wishlists, Selling Strategies 8. Gift Certificates and Gift Giving 9. Trust and Credibility 10. International Users 11. Store Finders and Locators 12. Transactional Email and Confirmation Messages 13. Methodology
RESEARCH STUDIES The information in these reports is a result of two separate rounds of e-commerce studies conducted by Nielsen Norman Group as well as a round of design reviews of a set of e-commerce websites. The studies took place in the United States, United Kingdom, Denmark and China (Hong Kong), and involved user testing, a diary-based longitudinal study and an eye tracking component. The Methodology report in the E-Commerce Report Series includes the full details of each study, the list of sites tested, and information about participants. The Wishlists and Gift Certificates, Transactional Email and Confirmation Messages and Locator Usability reports are based on additional research studies. Each of these three reports includes its own methodology section.
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Summary of Research Studies and the E-Commerce Report Series
Study One The first research study was conducted by a team of five usability experts. They conducted usability tests of 20 business-to-consumer e-commerce websites. A total of 64 people participated: 39 from the United States and 25 from Denmark. Nineteen of the twenty sites tested were American websites, which were tested by users in both countries. Users ranged in age from twenty to sixty. All users had previously shopped online and most had made purchases; however, we screened out people who had extensive technical knowledge of the Web. Usability testing sessions lasted two hours, and users typically tested three of the 20 selected sites in that time. Each site was tested by a minimum of nine users: six from the U.S. and three from Denmark. Sites were selected in seven different industries, such as clothing and toys, so that within each industry we had two or three sites for comparison. Tasks were modeled on common goals of online shoppers. Most tasks asked users to find a specific item or were open-ended, allowing freedom to shop according to their own preferences. In most cases, we stopped users before they entered a credit card number, so they did not complete the purchase. We also included tasks involving customer service information. For each test session, a facilitator sat next to the user, providing instructions to the user and taking notes. Users were asked to think aloud as they worked, describing their decision processes and any positive or negative reactions to the sites.
Study Two The second study included a diary-based longitudinal study and user testing, including an eyetracking component. Research began with diary-based study. participants from around the United States were asked to the record information in a Ten notebook about their online shopping experiences for a period of six weeks during the winter holiday shopping season. The goal was to understand how users shopped online. Users answered questions including the goal of visiting the site, why they visited that particular site, and if they achieved their goal. Users were also asked about what they liked and disliked about the site. Information from this round of research was used in part to develop tasks for the user testing portions of the study. The study also included user testing with participants in London, United Kingdom; Hong Kong, China; Munster, Indiana; Kennesaw, Georgia; and New York, New York. The New York City component, which was the largest, included eyetracking. Eyetracking allowed the facilitator to observe and record where the user was looking on the screen. Ninety-eight users participated in user testing. Participants included an almost even split between men and women who ranged in age from 18 to 64. All participants had purchased online previously, with varied amounts of online shopping experience. The least experienced user had purchased online once in the past year and 10 participants had made more than 30 online purchases in the past year. Users were recruited across a range of household income levels and general online experience.
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More than 100 sites were included in the user testing component of the study. Sites selected for testing included sites big and small, from various industries with varied product offerings and different design approaches. In addition, users completed tasks on sites they had previously visited. Participants provided a list of sites during the recruiting process and were asked to visit one of them during the study. This expanded the number as well as the types of sites tested. Tasks were modeled after those in the first study, including directed tasks asking users to find specific items, open-ended tasks allowing for site exploration, and customer service related tasks. Users proceeded as far as possible through the purchase process with fake user information. Users completed three additional types of tasks in the second study. Users visited sites they had visited before, which allowed us to observe users returning to a site as a repeat visitor. Users also completed open-ended tasks where they were given a goal of something to purchase, but were not directed to any particular website to make the purchase. The New York component of the study also included a task where users completed a purchase. Users selected one of five sites on which to shop and were given a budget. They could purchase any item or items they wanted from the site within their budget, send the purchase to themselves, and be reimbursed for the purchase price. The same facilitator ran all sessions in the second study, except for the Georgia tests. In all sessions, the facilitator sat next to the user, providing instructions, observing and taking notes. Users thought aloud as they worked.
ABOUT THE THIRD EDITION The third edition includes guidelines derived from both research studies as well as revisions, clarifications and further examples of guidelines from the previous editions of this report. For the third edition of this report, we used the existing guidelines from and our research studies to as complete heuristic reviews on additional e-commerce sites updated examples appropriate. Some screenshots remain from earlier rounds of research. Older screenshots are retained when necessary to reflect the appearance of the site at the time it was tested. Some sites’ designs may have changed since the sites were tested. For instructional purposes, all examples are valuable. They reflect actual designs and real user behaviors, which in turn create best practices that stand the test of time. Lessons learned from these designs are valid, even when designs have changed. Including examples helps illustrate good and bad usability examples, which can help designers learn from previous mistakes and successes. Participants' personal information has been blurred on screenshots.
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Search Behavior WHY USERS SEARCH In our first study, 81% (52 people) of users searched on one or more sites. In our second study, we tracked search behavior in the eyetracking portion of the study, and 83% of users (54 of 67 people) searched on one or more site. Users had many different reasons to search on sites. The ten main reasons for searching were: •
To get a feeling for the breadth or depth of the site’s product selection
Some users searched to get a feel for the product selection on a site – typically on a site they had not visited before. For instance, a user searched for “shoes” on Boden’s site to see if the site offered any. Another searched on CDBaby for a particular artist to try to determine what type of music the site offered. •
To quickly locate a product category, instead of using site navigation
Search was sometimes an alternative for navigation, with users immediately searching for a product category rather than using site navigation. A user on CompUSA searched for “printers,” one on Links of London searched for “cufflinks,” and another on Park N Shop searched for “detergent.” The Park N Shop user said, “The word ‘detergent’ just gave me the choices I needed. No other useless information.” Search can be particularly helpful on sites with large or diverse inventory. A user on Walmart.com said, “With Walmart, you know there’s so much of everything in that I can’t look as at possible the homepage. I just automatically type something and be asjust specific with what I want to purchase.”
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Search helped a user navigate the large product selection on Walmart.com. •
After unsuccessfully using the site navigation
While sometimes searching for a product category was simply a shortcut to avoid using navigation, in other cases, product category searches stemmed from users being unable to find products via the site navigation. Search became a replacement for failed navigation. For instance, a user on Sasa.com could not determine which category would include suncare products, so searched for “sunbathing” after pursuing several different navigational paths to such products with no luck. When searches resulted from failed attempts at navigation, users often searched for specific phrases, including products and criteria, rather than broad product categories. A user who could not navigate to frozen spinach under the Sainsbury’s category of Green Vegetables turned to search to look for “leaf spinach, frozen.” A user searched for “cowboy pyjamas” when she couldn’t determine how to find sleepwear on Boden’s site.
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Search Behavior
A user didn’t know where to look for shortbread on Harrods’ site, so turned to search. •
To locate a specific product
If users knew the name of the product they were looking for, search was (hopefully) an easy solution. Users armed with the title of a book or name of a movie could easily enter the information directly in search. A user on Amazon searched for “Harry Potter” to find the latest book in the series. A usertrouble on FYE.com searched for the movie Heartburn, which she had previously had locating elsewhere. •
To locate products with a specific attribute
When users had particular needs, searches became more detailed. Users searched on product criteria rather than categories. On NFL Shop, a user searched for “Peyton Manning” to locate a football jersey for that player. A user on Links of London searched for “onyx” when looking for cufflinks made of that material. •
When product descriptions did not answer shoppers’ questions
Users also turned to search when product descriptions did not answer their questions. On Comet’s site, a user could not determine if the products he was viewing met his criteria, so tried to narrow down his choices by searching for “combination microwave.” •
When faceted search or guided navigation did not return the desired product results
Users attempted search when faceted search did not return an expected products. On Nike.com, a user couldn’t find her desired hat using the site’s offered facets, so instead searched for “grey hat.”
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•
To narrow product options
Some users navigated to categories and then entered product characteristics, trying to narrow results. A user looking for specific earrings navigated to earrings, then entered "pink gold" when faced with too many options. •
To return to an item previously located
If a user wanted to view an item they'd previously located, he sometimes searched for the name or brand of the item to relocate it quickly. For instance, a user searched for "carmelo anthony" when looking at athletic jerseys, then switched to "michael jordan" and then searched again for "carmelo anthony" when he decided that's the item he wanted to buy. •
When looking for a piece of information, rather than a product, on the site
The final reason users searched on sites was to look for non-product information. Users tried the search box to find information about return policies, shipping timeframes, assembly instructions and price matching. A user on the Metropolitan Opera’s site searched for “subtitles” to see if translations were offered at performances, and a user on Cinema.co.hk searched for “ticket” to find out if refunds were offered.
WHAT USERS SEARCH FOR Our users searched for: •
Product categories (shredders, earrings, digital cameras)
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Product numbers (Sharp LC-32D40U, TC320X60, Canon BCI-6M)
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Man in Café Babylon Product names (Richest , The Family Stone, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius , Gio Table) •
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Product characteristics (pink gold, peanut, smartwool) Product categories and criteria (espresso dresser drawer, air conditioner energy efficient, women ski pant, least expensive mouse)
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Brands (Yellowtail, Steve Madden, Eukanuba)
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Customer service terms (price guarantee, return policy, delivery)
To serve its users, a site must accommodate all types of searches. Ensure that the site search adequately returns results for categories, product names, and product criteria. Regularly check search logs to learn about the language shoppers’ use when searching for products or content on the site. Review successful and failed searches to determine how to tweak the search engine to return better results. We looked at web queries based on if users were searching within a particular site or if they were conducting a web-wide search to locate a site offering a product.
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Search Behavior
When users searched within a site, the most common type of query at 34% was a combination of category and at least one product criterion. The second most popular search type, accounting for 22% of the queries, was a criterion alone, with 20% of queries for a category alone.
Of 332 queries conducted within a site, 4 submitted the search box filler text, 10 included specific product numbers, 23 were related to customer service requests, 43 included a specific product name, 66 were for a product category with no particular criteria, and 116 included both a category and at least one qualifying criterion.
In web-wide searches, more than half of the queries (57%) combined a product category as well as a criterion. This makes sense, as users searching the entirety of the web want to be more specific in their search criteria. 14% of queries were intended to find a specific website or the site for a specific company, and another 14% of queries were for product criteria alone.
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Of the 79 web-wide queries, 1 was for a product name, 1 was for customer service information, 4 were categories, 6 were product names, 11 were for product criteria, 11 were to find a company’s website, and 45 included both a product category and at least one qualifying criterion.
The phrasing of our tasks influenced users’ exact search queries, as users often picked words directly from the task to use in the search box. However, users didn’t consistently pick out the same combinations of words for their searches. Though all were working from the same written task, some users naturally searched for a product name, others for a criterion or characteristic, and others for a combination of criteria and category. For example, in a task asking users to find a box that can organize medication, users searched for “medication organizer,” “medicine,” and “medication box.” Recognizing the type of search a user is conducting can help direct him to the right area of the site. For instance, on CompUSA.com, a search for “printers” nicely took users to a page specifically designed for printer searches, allowing users to select a category of printer or brand.
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Search Behavior
A search for “printers” on CompUSA brought users to this page. The site explains, “We’ve brought you to our ‘Printers’ page based on your search.”
QUERY LENGTH Users conducted 411 searches in the eyetracking portion of the second study. Of those, 332 searches were conducted on e-commerce sites, and 79 searches were web-wide searches on search engines such as Google or Yahoo. In four instances, users ran searches on the filler text that appeared in the search box on The Container Store’s site. We removed these search queries from the analysis of query length, leaving us with 407 overall searches.
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The average number of characters per query across all searches was 15.5. Within site searches were almost the same at 14.5 characters. Web-wide searches were longer, at an average of 20.5 characters. The average number of words per query was 2.5 for all searches, 2.3 for within site searches, and 3.4 for web-wide searches. Since 57% of web-wide searches included a combination of a product category and at least one product criterion, the longer length of users' queries and number of words in those queries makes sense.
Search Type: Study 2
Average number of characters
Average number of words
All searches (407)
15.5
2.5
Within site searches (328)
14.5
2.3
Web-wide searches (79)
20.5
3.4
Across all searches, the average query length was 15.5 characters. Within a site, the average length was 14.5 characters. Web-wide queries averaged 20.5 characters in length.
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Search Behavior
Across all searches, the average number of words per query was 2.5. Within a site, the average number was 2.3. Web-wide queries averaged 3.4 words.
Two word queries were most common for within site searches, with single word queries the second most popular. In Web-wide searches, however, two- and threeword queries were most common. Again, this makes sense considering many webwide queries were more specific and often included a combination of product category and product criteria.
Within a website, two word queries were most common, accounting for 135 searches (41%). One word queries accounted for 95 searches (29%), three words for 51 (16%), four for 17 (5%) and 30 searches used five or more words (9%).
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In Web-wide searches, three word queries were most popular, accounting for 32% (25) of searches. Two-word queries followed closely at 28% (22 searches). Singleword queries accounted for 6% (5 searches), four-word for 15% (12 searches) and five or more words for 19% (15 searches).
In our first study, 54% of search queries consisted of more than one word. In our second study, 75% of all searches included more than one word. Search queries have gotten longer: users are more specific in their searches.
In our first study, only 54% of queries included more than one word. In our second study, 75% of all queries included more than one word.
The biggest difference between within site searches and Web-wide searches in our second study was the number with more than one word. Ninety-four percent of Webwide searches included more than one word, versus 71% of within site searches. Again, this indicates that users are more specific on the Web as a whole than they are on a specific website.
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Search Behavior
Seventy one percent of users' queries on a specific site included more than one word in the second study.
Ninety-four percent of users' queries in web-wide search engines included more than one word.
Users in our study did not use advanced search methods, though all had varying amounts of technical experience. Across all 407 searches, only 7 searches (2%) used quotation marks, and 8 (2%) used plus signs. All 8 searches which included plus signs were run by the same user.
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SEARCH SUCCESS In our first study, users' searches were successful 64% of the time. In our second study, within site searches were successful 74% of the time. Search success did not necessarily dictate success or failure in completing a task. Some successful searches led to failed tasks, and for some failed searches, users found other ways to successfully complete tasks.
The bar chart shows, by percentage, how many queries our users had to enter before they got meaningful search results. It also shows, by percentage, how many queries users entered before they gave up.
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Search Behavior
The probability for success declined as one needed more queries in the second study. •
First query: 64% success rate
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Second query: 38% success rate
The 38% success rate is the success rate for users who failed in the first query, but continued to do a second (and perhaps third or fourth) query. It is a result of 8% out of the 21% who continued after the first query (8%/21%). The 21% is the result of the 10% who had success in the 2nd, 3rd or 4th query or later plus 11% who gave up after 2, 3 or 4 queries. The following list shows which query led to success when a user was successful. •
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First query 86% Second query 11%
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Third query 0%
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Fourth or following query 3%
When users entered multiple queries, they were usually a variation of the same word(s). For example, users searched for “coffee pot” and “coffee maker” or “returns” and “exchanges.” We think this lack of variation partly explains the drop in success rates with subsequent queries.
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Elements of Successful Search SUPPORTING SEARCH There are many elements that need to work well to provide a successful search experience for the user. •
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Locating the search: A clearly visible search box appears on each page Entering the search: The search box must accommodate enough characters to support users’ searches and should default to the broadest search scope Interpreting the query: Searches need to support queries for products, information, and product characteristics and need to support the language and terminology shoppers use to describe products or services Returning results: Users need to know if the search was successful or if no results were found. They must understand the results, know why they were returned, and be able to quickly assess if they need to refine the search or if they’ve found the right items. Narrowing options: More and more sites offer users options to narrow their search results to meet their specific needs. Such options need to work perfectly to gain the user's trust and support the sale.
Users were frustrated when they searched for items they knew the site carried, but the search results did not include the item. This made users doubt the site was working properly.
KNOWING HOW TO SEARCH Search should be simple. Users shouldn't have to figure out where to locate your search box, or how to submit a query. Present an open text box at the top of the page, followed by a clear Search button. Default to the most lenient search scope. Users have an expectation that they can simply enter a term, any term, and get relevant and meaningful results from your site. Don't overcomplicate the search box with filler text, extensive options, instructions, or confusing buttons. Keep it simple. Keeping search simple also means making the scope of the search apparent. Users are most successful when search is automatically scoped to the broadest category, such as All Products. When sites scope searches to the currently selected section, users often miss that information. If search boxes and search results don't make the scope immediately clear, users can be left thinking a site does not carry the products they want. A user on Circuit City searched for a movie within the TV category. The site returned no results, but worse, there was minimal indication on the page that she had run a scoped search. She assumed the site did not carry the product and moved on to a competing site.
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Elements of Successful Search
A search scoped to the wrong category led a shopper to believe Circuit City did not carry the item she was looking for, when it did.
PRESENTING SEARCH RESULTS Search results need to clearly display products (or site content) that relates to the user’s query. Some searches in our studies failed to deliver successful results for the following reasons: •
Contained insufficient information for the user to select the right product
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Presented a list that appeared to be in random order to the user
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Contained too many items or had too many results on the first page
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Contained only one item
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•
•
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Misled users into thinking fewer items were available by poor presentation of “featured” results Had incomprehensible or inadequate page-to-page navigation within the results Presented irrelevant, poorly placed, or hard to use faceted search options Included items that appeared to be — or actually were — unrelated to the user’s search criteria
Successful search results are a matter of the quality of the results returned as well as how those results are presented.
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NARROWING THE CHOICES More and more sites offer both sorting and filtering options to users to narrow their selection based on their own shopping criteria. In fact, these tools are so common across e-commerce sites that many users expect such options to be available. Price is the sorting option most commonly offered by sites, with some also offering brand, popularity, customer ratings, or time on the site (newest first). Such options give users a quick and easy way to see all offerings, sorted by whatever is most important to them. Users found sorting by price particularly helpful when trying to qualify for offers which required minimum purchase totals. Several sites offered free shipping with a specified minimum purchase. Users found sorting by price helpful when trying to add a low priced item in order to qualify them for the offer. Faceted search, a type of filtering also known as guided navigation, helps users only view those products that meet their needs or specifications. Users can easily find a small black cardigan sweater on a site with hundreds of sweaters, for instance, by specifying size, color and style. Rather than navigating through page after page of options, hoping to find a product in the right style, size, or color, users can move directly to what they need and see those items listed side by side. Faceted search, when done well, allows users to see and focus on only those items that meet their specific needs. Such tools are a huge help for shoppers who come to a site with a specific goal in mind. They also help users who don’t yet know what they want by identifying important characteristics to consider about the product. A user on Yoox.com looked at sneakers and was put off by the more than 20 pages of results. He then saw he could select his size, and ended up with 6 pages of results. He said, “And this is good because I won’t be disappointed later if they didn’t have my size. I know they have it in my size if it’s here.”
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Elements of Successful Search
Faceted search allowed users to see only those items that met their needs.
However, such tools are often not well-executed. Some sites try to use the same product categories across different product types, resulting in poor choices for all products. Others don’t categorize products appropriately, showing users incorrect inventory. Others make it difficult to see what options have already been selected, or to remove those options. Such mistakes can make a user lose trust in a site and go elsewhere.
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Guidelines List Search Visibility ..........................................................................................26 1.
Use an open text field instead of a link to a search page..................................................... 26
2.
Make the search box easily identifiable, with an open text field followed by a Search button. .. 27
3.
Do not put filler text in the search field. ........................................................................... 28
4.
Put the search box on every page. ................................................................................... 33
5.
Ensure search fields are at least 30 characters long, allowing enough space in search boxes for users to enter and see their queries. ........................................................................... 34
6.
Let users submit a search using the Enter key. .................................................................. 35
7.
Present only one search box for users. ............................................................................. 35
8.
Make sure navigational menus do not cover the search box. ............................................... 36
Supporting Users’ Searches ........................................................................38 9.
Regularly review search logs for search trends and users’ terminology. ................................ 38
10.
Adjust the search engine based on search logs.................................................................. 38
11.
Adjust content or offerings based on search logs. .............................................................. 38
12.
Consider special treatment for frequent queries, such as categories or brands. ..................... 39
13.
Support many types of searches, including non-product searches. ....................................... 41
14.
Indicate what users can search for, when appropriate. ....................................................... 43
15.
Consider displaying suggested search terms as the user types his query. (Ensure suggested terms return relevant results.) ........................................................................................ 47
16.
Carefully categorize products to ensure solid search results. ............................................... 49
17.
Accept synonyms commonly used by customers. ............................................................... 52
18.
Accommodate misspellings and variant forms (spaces, plurals, etc). .................................... 53
19.
Accommodate searches with multiple words, including characteristics such as color, size and brand. .......................................................................................................................... 55
20.
Recognize search operators. ........................................................................................... 59
Advanced and Scoped Searches ..................................................................60 21.
Consider the need for advanced search. ........................................................................... 60
22.
Provide a clear link to advanced search – and back. ........................................................... 60
23.
Explain the scope of the search. ...................................................................................... 60
24.
Default searches to the most lenient category. .................................................................. 61
25.
Simplify options in scoped search. ................................................................................... 62
26.
Consider the use of facets rather than scoped search. ........................................................ 63
Presentation of Search Results ...................................................................65
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27.
Don’t put any steps between the user’s search and the search results. ................................. 65
28.
List the number of results found. ..................................................................................... 66
29.
Be cautious if promoting specific products in the search results. .......................................... 66
30.
Repeat the user’s search query at the top of the page. ....................................................... 67
31.
Allow users to View All or view more results per page. ....................................................... 69
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Guidelines List
32. Provide a descriptive product name, small product image, and price in search results. ........... 70 33. Include relevant product details or a brief product description in search results. .................... 73 34. Include inventory information on search results pages. ...................................................... 77 35. List all results and let users filter them as ne eded, rather than listing results separately by type. ............................................................................................................................ 79 36. Design search results pages to maximize the number of results a user can see and compare, without cluttering the screen. ........................................................................... 83 37. Clearly list content matches as well as product matches. .................................................... 86 38. Indicate if only one result is found. .................................................................................. 89 39. State when no results are found. ..................................................................................... 90 40. Write constructive and comprehensible messages when no results are found. ....................... 94 41. Allow users to s earch again from the No Results page. ....................................................... 95 42. Clarify if there are no exact matches but the site is making a suggestion or best guess. Be cautious in doing so. ...................................................................................................... 96 43. Indicate in search results if additional products may be available in stores............................ 99
Sorting Results .......................................................................................... 102 44. List results in by relevance. .......................................................................................... 102 45. Offer appropriate sorting options, such as by price, customer rating, or popularity............... 103 46. For sorting by price, present an option both to sort from high to low prices and from low to high. .......................................................................................................................... 103
Narrowing Product Choices: Guided Navigation or Faceted Search ...........105 47. Use facets to help users n arrow product choices if search results page or cate gory pages frequently offer more than 20 options. ........................................................................... 108 48. Offer both sorting and filtering options, as appropriate..................................................... 114 49. Pick attributes your customers understand. .................................................................... 115 50. Provide the most useful differentiating attributes specific to product type. .......................... 118 51. Ensure products are listed in all appropriate categories. (Filtering must work perfectly.) ....... 123 52. Clearly present filtering options. Do not scatter them around the page. .............................. 125 53. Display the most commonly used product attributes first.................................................. 128 54. If there are a large number of options in a category, such as brand, consider making only the most common visible by default and hiding the rest behind a link. ............................... 131 55. Offer further refinement of categories as needed. ............................................................ 132 56. List the number of products available with each attribute. ................................................ 132 57. Let users select more than one attribute in a category as appropriate. ............................... 134 58. Allow users to select criteria in more than one category.................................................... 135 59. Show users what attributes they’ve already selected. ....................................................... 137 60. Let users clear previous selections. ................................................................................ 141 61. Don’t show filtering options when only one item is listed. ................................................. 144 62. When displaying products that meet us ers’ criteria, use images that reflect the us ers’ selections. .................................................................................................................. 146
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Search Visibility 1.
Use an open text field instead of a link to a search page.
Users look for open text fields when they want to search. They do not look for a link. If search is hidden behind a link, some users assume the search is bad and the company is trying to hide it. In the first study, Nordstrom’s site did not have an open text field for search, but instead had a link at the top of the page. On Nordstrom, several users looked in vain for the search function. Expecting a text box, they did not notice the link at the top of the page. One user, who eventually did find the search link on Nordstrom, complained, “Why would you have to work so hard to get to where you’d want to buy something? I’m looking for a watch, and it took me 10 minutes to find the search box. And it was in the smallest of print.”
Search buttons were harder for users to find and understand than search boxes.
NASCAR's shopping site had an easy-to-locate search box in the upper right-hand corner of the page, accompanied by a clear Search button. This was well done.
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NASCAR's shopping site offered a clear open text field followed by a nicely labeled Search button.
2.
Make the search box easily identifiable, with an open text field followed by a Sea r ch button.
The search box needs no label. A clear Search button next to the field will identify the search for the user. The search button both identifies the search as well as telling users how to execute the search.
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The search box was easy to locate on Greenhome.com.
3.
Do not put filler text in the search field.
Some sites place filler text in the search field. This can be problematic for a few reasons. First, it makes it more difficult to locate the search. Users look for an open text field, so filler text can make the box less noticeable. Second, it can cause problems when users enter a search term. Any filler text needs to immediately disappear when the user clicks in the box. Otherwise, users may accidentally type the search query next to, rather than in place of, the filler text. Resulting search queries may have “enter product name” or other filler text in the middle of them. Third, if text is there to help users know what they can enter in the search box, it is a bad idea to place that text in the search box itself. Once users click, that text will be gone. Users had a difficult time understanding the search box on The Container Store’s site because of its filler text. The search box had the filler text, “enter product or item #.” The text itself confused one user, because it made her think she needed to know a product number: "But I don't have a product number." However, the more significant problem with the filler text was that it made two users think the Search button was a link to get to the search. They did not recognize the search field as a place to enter a query. The filler text completely filled the box and was the same color as the box outline. These users both clicked Search without entering a search term.
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To make matters worse, the site ran a search on the filler text and returned 100 results. The users who were already confused because search wasn't acting in the way they expected, now received results even when they did not truly run a search.
The filler text made the search field on The Container Store’s site unrecognizable to two users. They clicked the Search button without entering a search term, thinking they would see a Search page.
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The Container Store’s search engine returned 100 results for the filler text in the search box, “enter product or item #.”
The users who clicked Search without entering a query had no idea what happened. One returned to navigation because she didn’t understand the results. The other user tried to use the site search again, but again did not enter a search term. When she saw the results, she scrolled down and saw a New Search button at the bottom of the page. However, this search box had filler text as well. She clicked the button, thinking this would start a new search, but again ran the same search for the same filler text, bringing back the same results.
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The New Search at the bottom of the search results page used the same filler text, and caused a user to run into the same problem again.
After the task, she said, “I thought I would be able to put in a keyword and it would take me to products, but it didn’t.” She didn’t understand that she had not run a search and so didn’t understand the results that were returned. If you use filler text, ensure it disappears when the user clicks in the search box. If not, make to When returnaauser helpful message a user accidentally entering a sure query. clicked Go onifStaples.com withoutsearches entering without a query, the site returned zero results for “type search here.” Instead, the site could have recognized the error and included more specific text, such as, “Enter a search term in the box below.”
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A user clicked Go on Staples.com without entering a search query and received a page stating there were no results found for “type search here.”
Oriental Trading Company used the filler text “search item# or keyword.” If a user hit the Go button without changing the text, the site returned an error which said, “Sorry, you must enter an item number or keyword to search.” The page provided another search box and some search tips, including information about how to search for an item number from a catalog. This was helpful.
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If a user tried to run a search on an empty search field, Oriental Trading’s error message told the user to enter an item number or keyword and provided some search tips.
Some sites simply did not submit the search if the search box was empty, leaving the user on the same page. This feedback is inadequate, as users can think the site is broken or not functioning correctly. Costco presented an error message on the page, below the search box. However, this message only appeared for a few seconds, making it easy for users to miss. It would have been better to keep the message on the page.
Costco's
4.
error message appeared too briefly to be helpful.
Put the search box on every page.
People want easy access to search. Placing the search box in a consistent place on each page allows users to start a search regardless of their location on the site.
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On The Scholastic Store’s site, each page offered a consistently placed search box.
5.
Ensure search fields are at least 30 characters long, allowing enough space in search boxes for users to enter and see their queries.
We recommend search boxes 30 characters in length. This will accommodate most users' queries. In our second study, the average search query on an e-commerce site was 14.5 characters, with a minimum of 3 and a maximum of 50 characters. The median query length was 13 characters. Look at your search logs to see how long users’ queries are. It is easier for users to enter a query when the box accommodates their full entry. The ideal length may vary depending on the site and its inventory. For instance, a site selling books or movies may need to accommodate longer titles. A site with specialized equipment may need to accommodate searches for very specific or lengthy sets of product criteria.
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The search field on Urban Outfitter’s site only accommodated 14 characters.
6.
Let users submit a search using the
En t e r
key.
When users enter a search term in the search box, they expect to be able to use the keyboard to submit the query. On Lake Champlain Chocolate’s site, users had to click on Go to invoke the search. Using the Enter key on the keyboard did not work. This repeatedly frustrated one user and slowed several others down. In our first study, it was common that hitting the Enter key simply reloaded the page, rather than submitting the search. This gave users the impression that the search had returned no results.
7.
Present only one search box for users.
Some sites offered multiple search boxes for different types of searches. Users don’t want to have to decide between search boxes, they simply want their searches to work. Don’t make users do extra work. Do the work on the backend so the single open search field can accommodate any type of search the site supports. Walmart’s site had boxes such as Search our Site and Find…in Baby Shop on some pages. Several users did not understand the difference between the boxes. (For more on scoped searches, see page 60.)
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8.
Make sure navigational menus do not cover the search box.
On some sites, dropdown navigational menus were so sensitive to mouse movement that users repeatedly triggered them accidentally as they were trying to click elsewhere on the page. In many cases, this resulted in the search box being covered by navigation, making it difficult for users to enter a search term. This happened to a user on BestBuy.com. When he tried to move his mouse to the search box, he accidentally triggered the navigational menus by moving his mouse slightly into the navigational target areas in the main horizontal navigation. He had to try to move his mouse to the open text field multiple times before he did so without triggering the sensitive menus. If suchattempting menus appear aboveDelay the search box, ensure they not easily triggered by users to search. the response slightly orare increase the space between the menus and the open search field.
A user had trouble entering a search term on BestBuy.com when the navigational menus repeatedly covered the open search field. The second half of the search box can be seen to the right of the navigational menu in the screenshot above.
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A later redesign moved the search box above the site navigation.
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Supporting Users’ Searches 9.
Regularly review search logs for search trends and users’ terminology.
The search box is the way users can “talk” to the site. Search logs can reveal a lot about how users think about your merchandise, shopping trends, problematic navigational areas, and offerings that are missing from your site. Review search logs to see what terminology users have for your products and for their needs. Make sure that your search engine accommodates the searches users are conducting. Look for patterns in how users search. A sudden spike in searches around a particular item or term may indicate an article, blog, or TV mention of an item that has suddenly raised its popularity. Repeated searches for certain types of merchandise can indicate that users don’t know how to otherwise locate those items. While some users prefer to search, others turn to search as a last resort when navigation fails them. A high number of searches may indicate users cannot otherwise locate the items. A high number of searches for “picture frames” may indicate the Housewares category label isn’t clear, for instance. Also, consider the search engine as informal market research. If users repeatedly search for “tablecloth” but your site only offers napkins, consider if it makes sense to offer those related items. Search logs can also clue you in to common misspellings. If users regularly misspell brand or product names, ensure those misspellings take them to appropriate results.
10.
Adjust the search engine based on search logs.
After analyzing search logs, make any necessary adjustments to the search engine to accommodate users. For instance: •
Decide whether there are any frequent queries that need special treatment
•
Configure the search engine to recognize common synonyms
•
Accommodate misspellings
Determine if the search engine is returning appropriate results to users. Seeing repeated searches for similar terms, such as “sock” followed by “socks” and “stockings” may be an indication that no results are being returned. Make sure your top search queries are returning relevant results to users, and those results are being presented at the top of the search results list.
11.
Adjust content or offerings based on search logs.
Consider what the search engine can tell you about the site and its content. Keywords and topics that appear in search logs may make for good FAQs or Help content. Products searched for, but not offered, on the site might make good inventory additions.
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12.
Consider special treatment for frequent queries, such as categories or brands.
In our first study, eToys delivered custom results pages for its most popular toys, but SmarterKids returned standard results for all toy queries. When our users typed the name of a popular toy, such as Thomas the Tank Engine, Barney or Hot Wheels into the eToys search box, the results were specially designed category pages rather than a list of links. This worked well for most of our users and they thought it was helpful. However, some users were confused because the page layout differed from the search results page they expected. Like eToys, Office Depot sometimes took users to a category page instead of a search results page. For instance, if users searched for “shredders” they received a shredder-focused page with links to types of shredders and options for narrowing results. This was helpful, in that the page looked similar enough to search results that our users were not confused, and the page offered helpful links. However, users were confused by the jumbled layout on the page, not knowing if they were supposed to select from the Heavy- to Light-Duty links at the top, look at featured items, or narrow their options by criteria on the side of the page.
While it was helpful that Office Depot took users who searched for “shredders” to a product-focused page, users weren’t sure what to do next on the page because there were so many options.
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If frequent search queries take users to a specific page, ensure that page clearly lists product options. Costco.com did a nice job taking users who searched for “televisions” to a category page with promoted items at the top, and category and brand options below. The page also had categories listed on the side of the page. This was more successful than the Office Depot example because the categories were clear.
Costco’s site took users to a category page for Televisions when they searched for “television” or “TV.”
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13.
Support many types of searches, including non-product searches.
Users searched for all of the following: •
Product number (BC3104, s770)
•
Customer service terms (returns, delivery)
•
Product names (iPod shuffle, Richest Man in Babylon)
•
Category names (air conditioner, digital camera)
•
•
Criteria, including brand names (ballet, Uniden) Categories and criteria (Canon printer, peanut candy bar)
For instance, a user on Boden’s UK site was trying to get a sense of what the site sold, so searched for “shoes.” A user on Nike.com wanted a hat with specific colors on it, so searched for “grey white purple hat.” (See page 11 for a breakdown of searches by type.) Users also searched for other site content, like a company address. They also misspelled search terms. A robust search will accommodate each of these types of searches. Some sites simply accommodate searches for specific, properly spelled product names. Many sites neglect to support searches for site content, including crucial customer service information. When considering what terms the search needs to support, review search logs as mentioned in the guideline above, but also think of other sources. Talk to anyone in the company who regularly has contact with customers, such as a call center for catalog orders or a support desk for the website, or even store clerks. Find out what customers ask for and how they phrase their questions. Knowing customers’ terminology is essential. One user on FineStationery.com wanted to buy, “You know, those stickers you put on your mail going out, in the corner? That’s what I want.” He looked in the navigation under Corporate and Stationery, but then turned to search, entering the query “sticker.” The search didn’t return any results for return address labels, which is what he was looking for. On Bluefly.com, a user saw the option to navigate to Lightweight & Rainwear options within coats. When she later tried to search for “rainwear” she received no matches, though it was a category name on the site. She later searched for “lightweight” and saw products with the term in their description or name, but no way to navigate to the category. Product criteria should be searchable as well as product names. A user on Flight001.com was looking for a guide book for England. When he searched for “England,” he only received one result: a travel adapter. The site offered a travel guide for London, but it did not show up. He said, “They have an adapter. No books or guides England? But there’s search forfor England bring that up?” a London city guide right there. Why didn’t the
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When a user searched for "England" on Flight001, no guide books displayed, even though the user had previously seen a city guide to London.
It is also essential to support searches for customer service information. Many users turned to search when trying to locate policy or return information. For instance, a user on Anthropologie's site was buying a gift for a friend and wanted to make sure before buying it that his friend could return it. He searched the site for "return policy" and received product results, but no information about the site's return policy.
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A search for "return policy" on Anthropologie.com returned only product results.
By contrast, a search for “returns” on Build.com took users to the full return policy.
14.
Indicate what users can search for, when appropriate.
Searches should accommodate any term users enter. If the search accommodates something that a user may not expect, or if the search works in conjunction with product numbers in a mailed catalog, for instance, it can be worth telling users they can enter such queries.
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For example, the Boden site offered a Product Code search field, followed by a Quickshop button. This allowed users to enter product codes from the print catalog to find desired items quickly. The field was separate from the main search, with its own label and button, and will filler text in it. There may be good reason to explicitly support such searches, if users commonly use product codes to search for items on the site. However, consider if a separate search box is required. A single search box could be used, with text beneath indicating the types of queries the box supported, including product codes. When one user saw the Product Code search box before she saw the regular site search, she said, “You have to type in a product code. Oh, no you don’t.” Users looking for a standard search may be confused by seeing multiple options, while users looking to enter a product code should know to put it in the only search field, particularly if the field is accompanied by sample searches listed underneath the field.
Multiple search boxes at the top of the page caused one user to think she needed a product code to conduct a search.
A single search box with explanatory text can be enough to indicate what types of searches user can conduct. Oriental Trading used filler text to indicate users could search by item number or keyword. We advise against using filler text (see guideline on page 28), and recommend that the information be placed below the field instead. The site also had a link to Catalog Quick Order, knowing many of their sales came from recipients of their catalogs, which also led to a specialized search allowing users to enter an item number and quantity. This added items directly into the shopping cart.
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Oriental Trading allowed users to enter an item number in the main search box and also provided a separate Catalog Quick Order option, which allowed users to enter an item number and quantity and add items directly to the shopping cart.
A user on 1000bulbs.com appreciated the option to search by image, since she had a light bulb that she wanted to replace. She quickly identified her bulb as a halogen mini and saw the options the site had to offer. This was much simpler than her experience on other sites, where she tried to read tiny numbers and letters on the bulb to enter in site search engines. In this case, it made good sense to offer a visual search. This shows that the site realized users often don’t know the details of a light bulb they’re trying to replace, but that they shop by sight, looking for one that matches the burned out bulb. The placement of the link to Search by Image was problematic, though. The user who relied on this search successfully stumbled upon it the first time she searched, but when she tried to do the same search again, she accidentally clicked Search rather than Search by Image. It was helpful to place the button next to the standard search, as that’s how the user srcinally stumbled upon it. However, it was presented in the same way as the standard search with little space between the buttons, making it easy for users to confuse the buttons or accidentally click the wrong one.
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1000bulbs.com offered an image search, allowing users to navigate to the right product type based on what the light bulb looked like. This showed awareness of how shoppers look for replacement light bulbs.
Navigating to a category showed the various types of bulbs available, along with detailed images to help the user select the appropriate bulb.
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15.
Consider displaying suggested search terms as the user types his query. (Ensure suggested terms return relevant results.)
It can be helpful to show users suggested search terms as they are entering a query. This can help users pick an appropriate term which will show them results, rather than making up a query which might not be successful. Such results typically appear beneath the search box and change as users type each letter of their query. This can be particularly helpful on travel-related sites, where the site relies on accurate location names to return results. One user on Orbitz, however, was confused when he was searching for a hotel in Chicago. Search options appeared as he entered “Chicago” and he wasn’t sure which to click. He said, “When I wrote Chicago, a few different places came up. I’m not sure which one, but I’ll just go for Chicago, Illinois.” He was British and unfamiliar with U.S. states, so wasn’t sure he picked the correct option.
A user in London used the suggested search terms presented by Orbitz to select his destination.
If suggested queries are used, they must return relevant results. Suggesting that a user might be searching for “candy bars” is not helpful unless selecting that term returns all available candy bars on the site. Suggested terms that return zero results or one result aren’t helpful.
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Foot Locker provided suggested searches based on the user’s entry in the search box.
Some sites provided search results as users typed. This can be a good shortcut for users who know what they were looking for or se an item of interest. Other shoppers who are looking for all items that match their search query prefer to see the full list of results so they can browse and compare. Allow users to see a full list of results either by clicking the Search button, using the Enter key, or clicking to View All Results.
Some sites, such as Urban Outfitters, automatically listed search results as users typed. This was a handy shortcut for users looking for specific items, but still allowed users who wanted to browse results to use the search box in the standard way. Urban Outfitter’s design would have been better if the search results were more clearly differentiated from the background, with a strong border around the results.
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16.
Carefully categorize products to ensure solid search results.
Users were frustrated when site searches returned items that clearly did not match their inquiries or when products the site offered did not appear in results. On 1-800-Flowers, a user searched for “yellow” in order to find yellow roses. The search returned 21 yellow items – flowers, candles and such – but no yellow roses, even though they were available on the site. Unable to find yellow roses, he said, “If I were doing this at home, at this point, I’d say screw it. I’d have gone to my florist.”
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When users search for a color or finish, they expect search results to reflect their query. These results on Build.com for “red” include items available in that color, but the default product image is shown, which is not always red.
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In Urban Outfitters’ search results, (mostly) yellow products are returned for a search for that color (there is one lavender shoe returned in the first row of results.) Rather than showing the default image, the search results return images of the yellow version of each matching item.
A user on Disney’s site carefully narrowed the scope of her search to entertainment for a youth boy. When the search results came back, she immediately noticed that the website had not adhered to her search criteria. “I searched for something for a boy. This shows a girl with a Dalmatians pajama set,” she complained.
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17.
Accept synonyms commonly used by customers.
Customers may not use the same language to describe the same product. For instance, users looking for a car seat searched for “child seat,” “children’s seat” and “child restraints.” A user looking for bunk beds searched for “children’s bed.” Make sure the search engine accommodates synonyms, even if those words do not appear on the website. A user on Pottery Barn’s site searched for “drawers” when looking for a dresser, and received results that included no dressers. He never successfully located the dressers section of the site, so wasn’t sure there were any available. He searched twice for “drawers” and meticulously went through the results trying to find something to meet his needs, but no dressers were listed. Poor search results made him doubt the site carried the item he was looking for.
A Pottery Barn search for “drawers” returned no dressers, but plenty of other items with drawers, such as file cabinets and bookcases. The site offered dressers, but none appeared in the search results.
A user looking for printer ink on a variety of websites was stymied because he kept searching for “red ink,” when the ink was actually magenta. Consider how your users describe your products or their characteristics. While ink may come in cyan and magenta, for instance, users think of those same ink cartridges as blue and red.
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18.
Accommodate misspellings and variant forms (spaces, plurals, etc).
Users appreciated when search engines accommodated typographical errors or misspellings. When searches failed due to users’ typing errors, they assumed the site did not offer the products they were looking for. For instance, a user was looking for the song Guantanamera on the Sony Connect site. He did not know how to spell it, so searched for “juan tanamera,” which returned no relevant results. He searched again for the misspelling as one word, “juantanamera,” and received results. He said, “I think that either way, I should have received results. Sony Connect should improve their search engine. It would be nice if they had a contact button where consumers could tell them about problems encountered when searching for specific songs.” Users appreciated when searches simply worked, regardless of misspellings. A user said of Home Depot’s site: “I mistyped dehumidifiers as ‘dehumidifer’ with no third ‘i', but they still came up with results.” He made the same spelling error at Lowes, Sears and Walmart. Only Walmart failed to return results for his misspelling: “I’m really surprised that Walmart’s site is not programmed to search for similar products or look for misspellings.”
Costco.com corrects misspellings and indicated that the site was “showing results for ‘dehumidifier’” and provided a link to “search instead for ‘dehumidifer.’”
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Users are so accustomed to search engines correcting their spelling that they sometimes assumed the site had no matching items, even if they knew they misspelled their search query. One user mistyped a search for “James Bond ultimate edition dved set” on Amazon.com and received no results. She said, “I bet they don’t have it, because it didn’t come up even with my typo.” She ran the search again, removing the extra e in dved and saw the item she wanted as the first result. She simply expected the site to fix her mistake and return her desired item. Some users had work-arounds when they were unsure of the spelling of a word. A user searched for “Arnold” rather than “Schwarzenegger” when searching for the actor’s movies. Another abandoned a search when he wasn’t sure how to spell Jack Nicholson’s last name. On FYE.com, a user thought the site did not carry the artist he was looking for due to a spelling error. He searched for the artist “littlefeat,” though the artist’s name has a space between the two words, which he did not include. He received no results. He said, “They don’t have it. It’s not on here, see?” The site didn’t offer any suggestions, either for the spelling or for similar products he might enjoy.
A user’s search for “littlefeat” rather than “little feat,” returned no results on FYE.com. The site did carry items by that artist.
A user on YesAsia.com searched for “dianna krall,” misspelling artist Diana Krall’s name. He saw no results, corrected the spelling, and searched again. He said, “When I did the search it said no matches. For some others, like the Yahoo search machine, if you make a typo it tells you ‘are you looking for Diana Krall.’ If yes, you just click it and it takes you to that product.”
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Ensure that the search engine accommodates singular and plural terms as well. On Living.com, several users searched for “bunk beds” and received no results. “Bunk bed,” however, returned results. One user said after a facilitator helped with the unexpected problem, “I really disliked having to take away the ‘s’ on bunk beds. I thought it was almost an insurmountable problem. I would have never guessed.”
19.
Accommodate searches with multiple words, including characteristics such as color, size and brand.
Users sometimes did not understand the search results they received for multipleword queries. Some sites looked only for exact matches, and some returned results for each keyword, but did not prioritize results that matched all terms. In our first study, 54% of queries consisted of more than one word. In our second study, 71% of all in-site queries consisted of more than one word, with queries averaging 2.3 words. Of all sitewide searches, only 4 queries used enclosing quotes. A user on Sears.com searched for “10v cordless power drill” and received no results. Sears had 33 cordless drills at the time, but none were exactly 10 volts. However, the site could have returned “Nothing found for 10v cordless drills, but here are matches for cordless drills.” Similarly, a user searched on Pottery Barn’s site for “espresso dresser drawers,” and received no results. She searched again for “espresso dresser” and received results. While it was good the second search returned results, there was no clear reason the first did not. Dressers on the site were available in espresso stain and had drawers. After the first search, she said, “They probably don’t have it,” and went back to browsing the dressers page of the site. Unsatisfied, she returned to search. However, if she were not in a study situation, she likely would have left the site.
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A search for “espresso dresser drawers” returned no results on Pottery Barn’s site.
A search for “espresso dresser” returned products which weren’t returned for the similar search “espresso dresser drawers.”
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Another user searched for “drawers espresso stain” and again for “espresso stain, drawers.” While this search returned results, it returned no dressers. Instead, she saw a mirror and two file cabinets.
A search for “drawers espresso stain” returned no dressers, but only a mirror and two file cabinets.
When results were listed for multiple-word queries, users expected items matching every word in the query would be listed first. Users on The Container Store’s site were frustrated by the site search, which they did not think prioritized results properly. Several users on the site searched for the term “wooden box.” The site returned 100 results for the search, and apparently first listed items with the word “wooden” in the product name, followed by items with the word “box” in the name. This meant the box users were looking for was returned as result 96 out of 100, though it was a wooden box. Several users gave up scanning the results page before they reached the result when they did not see the box immediately. One user said after the task, “There were very broad results for search. I had to find the closest things that were coming up. So many results weren’t relevant to what I searched.” Another said, “I’m searching for wooden boxes, but I’m getting boxes and not wooden boxes. I shouldn’t be getting white gift boxes.” She later complained, “I had over 100 hits, with everything from bamboo to plastic to cardboard, and I searched for ‘wooden.’”
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Users searching for this box on The Container Store’s site tried a query for “wooden box.”
The top results for the term “wooden box” included wooden items followed by boxes, but wooden boxes were not prioritized. The box users were looking for was item 96 out of 100 returned results.
Users were frustrated when they searched and saw items that seemed irrelevant to the query they had entered. Another user on The Container Store searched for a variety of different terms describing a set of stainless steel canisters with clear tops. She said, “No matter what I type in, I get the same 100 results.” While that wasn’t the case, it was true that every search did seem to return 100 results, many of which seemed irrelevant at first glance. For instance, she searched for “steel and glass canister” and received results that were “ridiculous – toilet brushes, cracker jars.” The items returned were either stainless steel or glass, but to her they were completely unrelated to what she was looking for. She searched for “kitchen canisters” and said, “A third of the way down the page, I’m not even getting canisters anymore. This has nothing to do with what I typed.”
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20.
Recognize search operators.
Some people will try to use search techniques they’ve learned from other search tools on your site. While most user will stick to basic search queries, some may employ more advanced search methods. Here are some examples of special characters your search engine should respond to intelligently: •
software AND space
•
(lincoln county)
•
+mr. john smith
•
*price*
•
“winnie the pooh”
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Advanced and Scoped Searches 21.
Consider the need for advanced search.
Most users prefer to use simple search. If advanced search is offered, use a distinct link that is less prominent than the simple search’s button. Rather than offering advanced search, consider expanding the types of searches your search tool can accommodate or using facets to help users narrow results (see page 105 for more on facets.)
22.
Provide a clear link to advanced search – and back.
If your customers require advanced search functionality, offer it; but keep simple search as the default and allow an easy return. Advanced search offers manual control over many parameters that refine the search process. The main problem with advanced search, however, is that people may interpret the additional parameters to mean that they can adjust the search differently than the designer intended. Here are some examples from Reel: •
•
A Danish user thought that if he selected “Country = Denmark,” he could then search for the Danish title (“Gøgereden”) of the movie “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” A user thought that if he wanted to search for an English actor, he had to set “Country = England.”
23.
Explain the scope of the search.
A site search may cover the full site or part of the site or site inventory. It may cover a particular attribute, such as Artist or Author. Most users assume that a search will cover the entire site and all its inventory. It must be clear when and if this is not the case. A dropdown menu can indicate the options for scope and search results should also restate the scope of the search. It is difficult for sites to predict what type of search users want to conduct on any given page. Within a section, they may want to search that section or they may be finished shopping there and want to look for an entirely different type of product. For instance, some of the users on the Sears site started looking for a microwave oven when they were in the Tool Territory area of the site. On this site, that meant the Tools department was the implicit scope of the search. Several users searched for “microwave” and received no results. One user said, “I know a microwave is not a tool, but I thought maybe it would bring me to the appliance section.” Another user remarked, “This reminds me of looking under the Yellow Pages. You’re looking under lawyers, and it’s attorneys. I think I’m in the tool thing. I have to get out of the tool thing.”
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24.
Default searches to the most lenient category.
Search boxes should default to the most lenient search option, allowing users to refine if needed. Every selection list should include an option for All or Entire Site. Many users simply ignore options to limit the scope of a search. This is not a problem, so long as the option defaults to All. This means that if the user does not take any special action, the whole database or website will be searched. One user searched for “Ipanema” on CustomDisc and received no results. He didn’t notice or know that the default scope on the search was Artist, not All. In fact, All wasn’t even an option. The search failed not because of the user’s search query or because the site did not carry the song, but because the scope was not clear. A user on Overstock accidentally scoped his search for “luggage” to the music section. However, the results page did not clearly indicate this. The only sign of the scope of his search was above the results, next to the number of results found. He knew the site offered luggage, so couldn’t figure out why he was receiving music results. He tried to run the search again on the side of the page, but received the same results because he could not determine he was searching within Music. It would have been better to default to a site search and allow users to scope the results to their desired section.
A user accidentally scoped his search for “luggage” to the Music section of Overstock.com.
HancockFabrics.com allowed users to select the search scope. However, the site nicely defaulted to the broadest category for search: Entire Site.
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The HancockFabrics.com search allowed users to set a scope, but defaulted to searching the entire site.
25.
Simplify options in scoped search.
On FYE.com, the site defaulted to searching only the user’s currently selected section. While this worked for some users, others were confused by limited search results. As discussed above, it is better to default search scope to the broadest category. The site did offer an option to search the Entire Site, but the option was listed last in the list, rather than first. The site also changed the options for scope depending on the user’s location on the site. For instance, a user looking for a CD by a specific artist successfully used the search to select By Artist. However, other options weren’t as clear. For instance, users could be confused between Genre and Style on the FYE.com site. Also, the category Popular Music is confusing unless the contrasting option for Classical is seen.
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Options in FYE.com's scoped search weren't clear.
26.
Consider the use of facets rather than scoped search.
Rather than asking users to explicitly select a scope for a search, consider returning results and allowing users to narrow options via facets (see page 105 for more on facets.) Most sites don’t have the breadth and depth of inventory necessary to make scoped search crucial to the success of the search tool. Adding facets so users can select the type of results they are looking for after the fact can be just as effective when done well. Give users suggestions for limiting results after the search is run. This can help avoid the problems which arise when users select the wrong scope for their search. For instance, a user on Sears.com was looking for free weights and searched the Fitness & Sports section for “ankle weights.” All the results were for weight systems or weight benches, with no free weights shown. This was because free weights were categorized under Health & Wellness, rather than Fitness & Sports. Because the user scoped his search to the wrong section of the site, he assumed no items were available.
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A user could not find ankle weights on Sears.com because he scoped his search to the wrong product category. They were available elsewhere on the site.
Faceted search, like on Oriental Trading’s site, allows users to narrow searches after entering a query, rather than forcing them to pick a scope for their search initially.
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Presentation of Search Results The search results page is, in essence, a category page. The page lists multiple products which it needs to name and show to the user, allowing the user to make an appropriate product selection. Like a category page, the page must clearly show users how many products meet their needs and highlight differences between them as much as possible. (See our report Homepages and Category Pages in the ECommerce report series for related information about designing such pages successfully.)
27.
Don’t any steps between the user’s search and the searchput results.
A user on Staples.com searched for a brand as soon as he reached the site’s homepage. This took him to a page asking him for his zip code, rather than returning search results. When he saw this page, he said, “Oh, I don’t see anything coming up,” and assumed his search had failed. He switched strategies for finding the product and started to use the site navigation instead. The site required users to enter a zip code before seeing any products. However, this was not clear. When the user entered a search term and saw a page asking for a zip code, he assumed he couldn’t search for the product. If this step was necessary, it should have been explained and the page should have acknowledged he was in the middle of searching for a product. He later tried another search and this time said, “I guess I have to put in my zip code. It would have been nice if it would have just come up.”
A user saw this page after he submitted his search on Staples.com.
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28.
List the number of results found.
Users wanted to see the number of results found to determine if they needed to further narrow their search or not. When a high number of results were found, users sometimes looked for faceted search options or refined their search queries.
Vitacost.com listed the number of results above the results themselves, here stating, “Showing Products 1-20 of 442.”
29.
Be cautious if promoting specific products in the search results.
A user on Cooking.com was looking for a blender, and searched for the term "mix drinks." This returned a results page which featured a Bestseller, followed by the standard search results. The user thought the site only had one blender. Though the item was labeled as a Bestseller and another search result was listed below, she thought the first item listed was the only option on the site. The dark rule lines and yellow headers made her think only the highlighted option was a search result. She said, "It was the only one that came up for the site, so I don't know if it's the only one that they sell."
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Highlighting a bestselling item in the search results on Cooking.com made one user think the site only had one blender for sale.
30.
Repeat the user’s search query at the top of the page.
It is important that users know what they searched for. This can help them refine the search if too many or too few results are returned. This is particularly helpful if no results are found. On BroadwayOffers.com, if no tickets were found that matched the user’s desired criteria, the page did not tell users what they had previously searched for. The site didn’t clearly indicate if the date, type of seat, or number of seats was not available or suggest any solution. Without knowing what he had searched for previously, one user conducted the same search three times.
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BroadwayOffers.com did not tell the user what exact search query had returned no results. This caused one user to conduct the same search three times in a row.
Foot Locker repeated the user’s query at the top of the list of results.
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31.
Allow users to
Vie w All
or view more results per page.
Allow users to change the view of search results, viewing more on a page at a time if they’d like. View All may not be a reasonable option, depending on the number of results likely on your site. If View All isn’t possible for technical reasons or doesn’t make sense because users would see thousands of products, consider an option to view more results per page, such as 20, 50 or 100. Some users liked to see all their options on one page. The Container Store site had clearly designed search results, though the quality of the results was not great. It was easy to quickly skim down the page and see if any of the items met the user’s interest, and the layout of the page allowed users to see many results at once. Many users selected View All on the search results pages.
Users easily scanned the list of product results on The Container Store’s site and many selected the option to View All (presented next to the page numbers at the top and bottom of the results listing).
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Consider site performance and inventory when presenting the option to View All. Wayfair, a site selling thousands of products, allowed users to view 24, 28 or 96 items per page. This option appeared at both the top and bottom of search results.
32.
Provide a descriptive product name, small product image, and price in search results.
In most cases, users expected to see the product name, price and a picture of the product in search results. The product name needed to be descriptive enough for users to be able to understand and identify the product and its purpose. If product names are not descriptive, consider a one-line product description. The product image should be large enough for users to identify the product and to convey some information about the product. For instance, on the Pottery Barn site, some images were large enough that users could determine the number of drawers a piece of furniture had without having to click into the product description.
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A user determined which search results he wanted to pursue on Pottery Barn’s site by looking at the number of drawers in the product images.
A lack of product images on Stonewall Kitchen’s search results pages made it difficult to understand the search results. This was even more problematic because the site listed product results and recipe results. A product image would have been a quick and visual way to help users understand which results were relevant to their search.
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A lack of product images in the search results on Stonewall Kitchen’s site made it difficult to locate products of interest.
One user searched for “dog leash” on PetSmart.com and was pleased with the presentation of search results. She said, “Excellent! There are all the leashes that are available. I can see the prices, the colors. It’s very nice. I can see if it’s a muzzle, if it’s retractable. I can see all that without having to click into product information.”
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A user appreciated the amount of information on search results pages on PetSmart.com.
33.
Include relevant product details or a brief product description in search results.
Users need to see enough information to decipher which product meets his or her needs. Information such as brand, release date, or distinguishing characteristics help users narrow their prospects. On Tower Records, a user searched for Disney’s Fantasia video and received several results. “It’s Fantasia alright, but is it Disney’s Fantasia? How can I see who made it?” The short product description did not provide the brand name, so the user had to click to discover if the right video had been found. Two users on Amazon searched for an author's most recent book by conducting a site search for the author’s name. The results included the date of publication, which allowed each to select the proper book without having to view and compare multiple product descriptions.
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Publication date and format information on Amazon.com's search results page helped users locate the book they were looking for.
Users need to be able to distinguish one product from another. A user on Manchester United’s shopping site searched for the player “Alan Smith,” saw the results, and understood, “We’ve got away shirts and home shirts. I’d want a home shirt if it were me.”
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A user understood she could choose between home and away shirts on Manchester United's shopping site from the information displayed with the search results.
Successful search results pages gave users the information they needed to discern between similar products. A user on FYE.com searched for a book called Cheese Monkeys and received two results in books. She was able to compare the hardcover and paperback editions and their prices.
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Product information in FYE.com’s search results allowed a user to decide between the hardcover and paperback edition of a book. The heatmap above shows where the user looked to determine which version of the book she was interested in. Red indicates areas of more interest, blue areas the users spent less time reviewing. She reviewed the title, format and price information for each version before selecting the hardcover version.
When sites did not adequately describe the product, users were forced to jump from search results page to product page and back in order to understand their options. Users had a hard time on FineStationery.com because search results did not even include a product name. Results had an image and designer’s name or brand, but no text describing the type of product.
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Search results on FineStationery.com showed the product price and brand or designer name, but no product name or description. Users weren't sure what type of product was being displayed.
34.
Include inventory information on search results pages.
If the site includes items not currently available, indicate this information on search results pages.
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Search results on FYE.com included availability information.
A user on YesAsia.com used advanced search to locate a movie. The search results listed two version of the movie – a special edition and the regular version. The special edition was out of stock, but the standard version was not. This was clear in the search results, allowing the user to navigate directly to the version that was available.
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YesAsia.com indicated typical shipping time in search results.
35.
List all results and let users filter them as needed, rather than listing results separately by type.
Some search results listed items by type, showing, for instance, books separate from movies. This typically confused users. While it is helpful to be able to look for a particular type of result, it is better to show users all results and then let them select the type of result they are looking for. It is difficult to design a page with categories of results in such a way that users instantly understand what they are looking at. Users expect to see a list of results, not a page divided by categories. Sites often show only a few results in each category, as well, which can make users jump to the often incorrect conclusion that selection on the site is limited. For example, a user on FYE.com did a search for “graphic design” on the site and thought there were only three results. Only after she’d been on the site for 10 minutes and had conducted additional searches did she realize she could click to view more results in each category.
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A user did not realize she could click to see “all 77 matches in Books” on FYE.com. She thought the site offered only three books related to graphic design.
Other users ran into the same difficulty. This was particularly true if users weren’t sure which category the product they wanted would be listed under. On BestBuy.com, a user repeatedly said he was looking for software for video editing. When looking for the software on the site, he searched for “DVD transfer.” While the site did offer some software results, he never saw them. He selected the Computers category from the first categorized page of results, but then only looked at the top category of results on that page, which was Graphics Cards and Components. He never noticed the Software category.
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Best Buy sorted search results by category, which forced the user to know what type of result he was looking for. A user who said he was looking for software never found software in the results. He navigated correctly to Computers, but then didn’t notice the categories on the Computers page and never saw the Software category.
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On LLBean.com, users had difficulty understanding the number of results found due to presentation. A user searched for “long underwear” and then clicked the option for Women’s on the side of the page to narrow her results. This resulted in a page which first listed four matches for Sleepwear & Underwear, with a link to View all 20, and another row showing the 1 result found within Outerwear. When she looked at the page, she assumed all options were shown and said, “That’s not a good selection.” She left the page having no idea that there were 16 additional options available if she clicked View all 20.
The display of results on LLBean.com lead a user to believe that this page showed the site’s full collection of women’s long underwear, when it instead showed only a sampling.
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The site later changed to let users select a category of result on the left-hand side, rather than separating results by category.
36.
Design search results pages to maximize the number of results a user can see and compare, without cluttering the screen.
There is no magic number of search results to display on a page. Maximize the screen real estate to allow users to see as many options as possible, while creating a design that makes it easy for users to compare items without feeling overwhelmed. Some users complained about sites that wasted space that could be used to provide product information. A user on YesAsia.com said “They are using this vertical layout. That’s wasting a lot of space on the screen. Most of the time on this screen you can only see four products at a time. If they listed them side by side, they could save space and it would be easier to pick the right product.”
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A user thought too much space on the YesAsia.com search results page was wasted. He wanted to see more results per screen.
Adagio.com did a poor job displaying search results. Each was listed with an accompanying image, but the image did not help users identify the product or information. For instance, a large white box with the text Tea Information was placed next to any results from the tea info section of the site. A large graphic showing each product’s tea leaves was listed for each type of tea, but they all looked quite similar. Further, the images were large, which limited the number of items which could be displayed on a screen. Product descriptions or page content was shown as well, but the large graphic meant that one sentence descriptions were followed by an inch or more of white space.
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Adagio.com’s search results did not optimize the page to display many results in a clear and easy-to-compare way. Large images wasted space without adding much value to a user’s understanding of the results.
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The Scholastic Store listed products in a grid, with a product image, age range, and price information. Users could also select how many items they wanted to see on a page (12, 24, 60 or 100). By removing the right-hand column on the page, however, more results could have been viewed at a time.
37.
Clearly list content matches as well as product matches.
A user on Ikea’s site wanted to see if he could pay to have someone assemble his furniture. He searched for “paid assembly” on the site, and saw at the top of the page of results that 5 matches were found. However, nothing was displayed on the page except a Search feedback box. Results were listed, but they were listed on the side of the page, where users could filter results by type. Four matches were found in About IKEA and one in Customer Service, but no information about these matches was listed in the body of the page. He said, “It says 5 matches, but it’s hard to see what they are. Where are the matches? I did a search, but I don’t see where the matches are.”
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Presentation of Search Results
Ikea's site returned matches for "paid assembly", but failed to display summaries or links to the results.
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Users often overlooked divisions of types of results. On Edible Arrangements’ site, products and information results were divided into two tabs. It is easy for users to overlook such tabs.
For common customer service users directly the associated policy page. For instance, take related users tosearches, shipping take information if they to search for shipping, or a return policy page for returns.
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A search for Shipping on Vitacost took the user directly to the Shipping & Delivery section of the Help area of the site.
38.
Indicate if only one result is found.
Several sites took users directly to the product page if only one search result was returned. This is helpful in that it does not waste a page by listing only one item. However, it can be confusing to users to see a product page when they expect to see a page of search results. Help users understand the results by clearly stating at the top of the page that only one result was found and that this is the only result, with a link to refine the search.
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When only one result was found on Artful Home’s site, users saw a product page, with no indication that it was as a result of their search.
39.
State when no results are found.
Clearly indicate that the search was run, but that no matches were found. When appropriate, offer suggestions such as broadening the search term or checking spelling.
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Office Depot clearly stated if a search “returned 0 results” and presented the search box again.
Don’t show users results if no matches are found. A user searched for “candy bar” (in quotes) on Lake Champlain Chocolates’ site and received no results. There were no exact matches for the full term. The site included a message at the top of the page stating no results were found and suggesting that the user broaden the search query with “more words.” However, the site also listed recommended products, which looked like search results. Since the user saw results, he paid no attention to the information about the failed search and instead focused on the products. He was confused by the products listed, which were recommended products on the site as a whole, and not particular in any way to his search. He said, “Why is the first hit truffles? That has nothing to do with candy bars.”
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Lake Champlain Chocolates’ site showed product results when a site search failed. The user looked at the results, not the message, and didn’t understand why the site gave him truffles when he looked for candy bars.
A user on Sainsbury’s site was confused when he searched for “leaf spinach, frozen” and received no results. He skimmed right past the area where it said no results were found and instead focused on the promotions on the page. He said, “I looked for ‘leaf spinach, frozen’ and got champagne and Malteasers.”
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A user didn't notice the message that no results were found, instead seeing the large Your Results heading and the products listed on the page. Sainsbury's site was listing promotions, not product results.
Although one user was frustrated that half.com did not have the comic book he was searching for, he immediately realized that it wasn't available on their site, but that related products were available on eBay. The site clearly stated that no products were found, and offered suggestions for refining the search query.
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When no products are found in a search on half.com, related products available on eBay were displayed. The top half of the page focused on telling the user that no results had been found.
40.
Write constructive and comprehensible messages when no results are found.
Error messages should tell people how to proceed rather than tell them what they did wrong. They should be as polite as if the customer were standing in front of you and should place blame on the site, not the user. They must be written in clear language, with no technical slang or jargon. When a user enters a query for which the search engine can find no matches, display a No Results page. The No Results page should provide constructive and comprehensible advice about how the user can solve the problem. On 1-800-Flowers, we saw many users search in vain for “yellow roses.” The no results page suggested that users “broaden” their search, but many users didn’t understand the suggestion. In response, we saw users search for “roses, yellow” (no results), “yellow” (21 results, but no yellow roses) and “roses” (success). Error messages must be short and simple. Even after an error, users won’t read much text. The message should restate the user’s query, clearly state no results were found, and make it clear what options the user has. Suggest that the user check his spelling or typing or asking users to use a more general term in their search.
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The site can also offer alternate ways to find information, such as offering a link to the site map or customer service, or providing a phone number.
41.
Allow users to search again from the
N o Re su lt s
page.
Give the user another chance to succeed by allowing him to search again from the no results page. Provide a search box in the content area of the page.
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OrientalTrading.com provided a search box on pages when no results were found.
42.
Clarify if there are no exact matches but the site is making a suggestion or best guess. Be cautious in doing so.
It can be helpful to direct users to similar products if their specific search fails due to the site’s inventory or selection. However, this needs to be done carefully so users understand the results they are seeing. Users assume if they run a search and see results that those items are directly related to their query. Several users who attempted tasks on the site CDBaby received confusing search results. The site offered music from independent artists. However, the site did not clearly convey this information, so many of our users searched for popular artists on major labels. The site had a feature that returned independent artists similar to popular artists. The site even offered this as a tool called Sounds Like. However, users didn’t understand that when they searched for popular artists on the site, the site was returning the Sounds Like results, directing them toward similar artists. (Further, the one user who noticed the Sounds Like search option thought it was a phonetic search tool.) One user conducted three searches for familiar artists before realizing the site might not sell the music he was looking for. He said, “I just typed in Scissor Sisters and it hasn’t come up with anything that’s related at all. I don’t know if this site doesn’t have them or if the search isn’t working.” He then searched for The Beatles, received no results, and said, “This might be quite an alternative site.”
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CDBaby's search returned 188 album results for an artist's name - but none were for the artist the user was looking for.
Another user searched on Home Depot’s site for “air conditioners,” but thought there were too many results. He searched again for “air conditioner energy-efficient.” The site nicely stated at the top of the results page that there were no exact matches, but that the page listed partial matches. However, the user assumed that he had a list of all the site’s energy efficient air conditioners and that only energy-efficient units were listed. This was not the case. He said, “It looks like they brought me to air conditioners that are energy-efficient. They don’t say they’re energy efficient, but I assume they are. This one says Energy Star, but the others don’t say it. I have to think they are.”
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A user assumed all the air conditioners listed were energy-efficient, since that’s what he searched for. This was not the case. That wasn’t clear from Home Depot’s explanation that these were “partial matches.”
A user searched for a particular vineyard on Wine.com, but the site did not offer the label he was looking for. It instead suggested similar wines. However, the site did not clarify why they were “similar.” The user decided that the site had returned other Australian, reasonably priced wines.
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Wine.com included a clear statement directly above the search results indicating similar, but not exact, matches to the user’s query were shown.
To avoid the potential for irritating or misleading users, consider if it is worthwhile to broaden users’ criteria. Users often miss messaging explaining why search results are not what they expected to see. When users see results on a page, they assume they are relevant to the query they just entered. Rather than automatically returning related results, consider offering a link to a suggested search. For instance, Wine.com could have said, “No matches found for Yellowtail. Search again for similar wines: Australian wines, $20-$50.”
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Indicate in search results if additional products may be available in stores.
Several users mentioned using a store’s site to get a sense of their offerings when deciding whether or not to visit the store. For instance, a user looked to three different home improvement store websites to see which offered the most options for dehumidifiers, with the intention of driving to the store with the best selection. Another mentioned looking at Walmart’s site to plan her weekend shopping, and a third checked out the styles on BananaRepublic.com before deciding whether to go to the store. Because users may be looking to the site to get an idea about in-store inventory, it is helpful to indicate in search results if the site offers all products available at the store, or if additional items may be available.
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The Container Store’s search results page included this information. A message at the bottom of the results page said, “Our Web site contains only a collection of what is available in our stores, so if you do not find the exact solution you are looking for, please call us at 1-888-CONTAIN (266-8246) or Contact Us via email.” This was helpful placement for such a message, as a user who had just scanned the results with no luck might see this information and decide to call or visit a store.
A message at the bottom of The Container Store’s search results page told users that the site did not carry the full inventory available in stores.
Similarly, Costco also informed users that inventory was different online and in stores.
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A message at the bottom of the search results page informed users “Costco carries items in our warehouses which may not be available online. Visit your local Costco warehouse for current product inventory and to see if we stock what you are looking for.” The site then provided a link to “find your nearest warehouse.”
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Sorting Results 44.
List results in by relevance.
Users were confused when search results did not list their desired product at the top of the list. Search results should be listed by relevance and the search engine should be carefully managed to make sure the best results are returned reliably. For instance, a user on YesAsia.com expected recent releases from artists to be listed among the top results. He searched for a film by the name of the lead actress. He was surprised by the results, saying, “When searching for Isabella Leong, most would be looking for the most recent movie she’s played in. However, this is on the bottom part of the page. This movie should be in the top of the page.” He ran into the problem again when looking for a CD by Joey Yung. He said, “She’s a very famous local artist. But the latest release is on the 2 nd page of results. When you’re using the search function to find the CD, the most popular one is not on the page. The first page was a release from several years ago and it’s not quite what the customer is looking for. They are looking for the latest product. After a certain time, no one is going to buy it.”
A user was disappointed that the most recent album by an artist wasn't the first result on YesAsia.com.
Avoid showing scores to indicate how relevant search results may be. Relevancy scores are just noise for most users, who aren’t aware of or interested in the factors that influence ranking. Use the scores only to order the list from highest to lowest.
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45.
Offer appropriate sorting options, such as by price, customer rating, or popularity.
Appropriate options vary from site to site. Depending on the products being sold, customers might care about brand, dimensions, customer reviews, popularity, or most recent additions to the site, among other options. All sites should present the option to sort by price. Users frequently wanted to restrict their searches to particular budgets. Sorting options should be presented at the top of the results with a clear and descriptive name for each option. A user complained on the Container Store site because there were no options to sort search She said, would like to it beby able sortpopular this by price something. It’s not results. easy because you“Ican’t organize thetomost or by or low to high or high to low.”
Users appreciated options to sort products by relevant criteria. Build.com allowed users to sort by price, model number and bestselling items.
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For sorting by price, present an option both to sort from high to low prices and from low to high.
Providing both options allows users to see either low-price or high-price items easily. If the site only sorts from low to high, users have to sort and then navigate to a page of results which has higher priced options.
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The Children's Place gave users the option of sorting products from high to low price, or low to high.
(For more about sorting product listings, see the Homepages and Category Pages report in the E-Commerce report series.)
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Narrowing Product Choices: Guided Navigation or Faceted Search Search results pages and category pages are similar in many ways, including the frequent use of guided navigation or faceted search to help users narrow product options. The main difference between category pages and search results pages is category pages have items which are all considered to be within one over-arching category, and which were located via navigating the website. Search results pages list items from throughout the site, potentially crossing product categories, and are shown in response to a facets user’s remain query. However, options using essentiallythe thefunctions same. of sorting results or narrowing This section combines examples of narrowing results from searches and from category pages on sites. (For more about category pages, see our Homepages and Category Pages report in the E-Commerce User Experience series.) When users are faced with too many product options, whether on a category page or in search results, they have a difficult time determining which of the many options best fit their needs. In our first study, 27% of task failures were a result of not being able to locate a suitable item on the site, though all of our tasks were designed so there was always at least one suitable item available. When users see too many options, with no way to narrow choices, they can easily miss those products that best fit their needs. When users can’t easily manage the number of options, they may abandon the purchase or buy a product that is not the best option for them, which may result in a return. Filtering is a way of narrowing user’s product options so they can find the items that bestthe meet their specific We define filtering any method of in interaction lets user refine a setneeds. of products, reducing theas number of items the set that according to criteria chosen by the user. This is also sometimes called faceted navigation, guided navigation, faceted search or structured search. The main idea is presenting users with a number of characteristics by which they can narrow their view of products on a site. For instance, a user can see only black sweaters in size medium, or only 6 Megapixel digital cameras under $500. The ability to narrow product choices by filtering became increasingly popular in the years between our studies. When it works well, it is an excellent way to direct users to the products that best meet their needs. When it works poorly, it is a way to irritate users or hide product choices from shoppers. The need for filtering increases as product choices increase. The need for such options was particularly apparent on SmarterKids, where search or navigational clicks often resulted in hundreds of products spread over dozens of pages. While users had many good things to say about the site, it was frustrating for users to find products that met the goals of the task, such as “software related to science for a 6year-old” or “something to help a 10-year-old who’s having trouble in math.” Once users got to the right part of the site, there was no way to narrow the selection.
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Many users commented on how helpful narrowing options were on a variety of websites. A user said of Office Depot, “I typed in shredders and it just came up. There were further search criteria on the side. It was very user friendly. It was right there, the range of prices.”
Office Depot let users narrow shredder options by cut style, height, speed, and number of sheets per pass.
One user said after using tools to quickly narrow his choice of air conditioners on Home Depot’s site to only two models, “That’s always helpful, the information on the side, the filters. It’s easy to select things and filter the results. I appreciate that when I shop, especially when I know what I’m looking for.” Even when filtering tools narrowed users’ selections drastically, they appreciated that it saved them from having to review many products to determine if they met their purchase criteria or not. A user on Sports Authority’s site was looking for athletic shoes and sorted by size. He said, “They don’t have big sizes for me, but I like that they tell me right away they don’t have the size.” Though it was disappointing, it was preferable to looking through pages and pages of shoes only to realize his size was not available.
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A user appreciated being able to narrow his options for sneakers based on shoe size on SportsAuthority.com.
Such options are so common that users complained when sites did not offer them. A user on Pottery Barn said, “It would be nice if you could find by your own criteria. Just plug in what you’re looking for, rather than having to click on each set of drawers.” She wanted to know the width of the dressers and the finish, and had to click on each product that looked like it might fit her criteria. Another user said, “There are quite a few websites out there that let you specify what you’re looking for. I guess I’m going to have to look at each drawer and each drawer’s product information because there’s no option to specify what I’m looking for. Target.com does it and Walmart, too — they allow deeper search. The options are just not there.” A further benefit of faceted search or guided navigation is that it highlights important product characteristics for users. Someone shopping for a camcorder might not realize that they can record to a variety of formats until they see those criteria listed on the page. A user shopping for a digital camera might not consider the megapixels and zoom level on the camera until confronted with options. Simply listing relevant characteristics can help educate users who are unfamiliar with the product.
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47.
Use facets to help users narrow product choices if search results page or category pages frequently offer more than 20 options.
To help users find items that meet their specific needs, allow them to narrow product options by selecting from preset criteria or product characteristics. This can be done on category landing pages, product listing pages, or in search results. A user on Joann.com was looking for a new sewing machine. She navigated to the area of the site and said, “Now it’s broken down into different companies [brands]. That’s a good thing.” Later in the same task, she looked for scissors and again looked by brand: “I want a brand I recognize.” One user was overwhelmed by her choices on pages Magazines.com. to the section and was faced with six of results, She with navigated no indication of Entertainment the total number of magazines. Many of the magazines offered were unfamiliar to her, making her doubt the site offered publications she might be interested in. She said, “It was hard to scan. If I wanted a particular magazine, I would have appreciated more help.” There were no options to sort or narrow product selections. The magazines could have been further categorized to help narrow the selection from 6 pages of results.
Magazines.com did not offer users any way to sort the titles on product listing pages or narrow the choices. The Entertainment section, shown above, included 6 pages of magazine titles.
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A later redesign of Magazines.com allowed users to both sort and filter titles.
The point of offering filtering options is to narrow users’ choices. It is not necessary if pages offer only a few options. If most pages offer fewer than 20 options to users, filtering is not necessary. Sorting is still helpful, however. (See page 102 for more on sorting.) If the site offers more than about 20 products on a number of category pages, it is worth offering filtering choices to users. Otherwise, users are easily overwhelmed. A user on DavidYurman.NeimanMarcus.com complained, “There were a lot of pages of gemstone rings, with no way to refine the search.”
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There was no way to refine the selection of gemstone rings on the David Yurman area of the Neiman Marcus site, which offered 10 pages of products.
A user on Guild.com went to Paintings and clicked on the link to view all paintings. This returned fifty pages of results. She said, “I don’t want to scroll through 50 pages even if this is something I’m going to have in my home.” The page offered no options for sorting or filtering, though users could click tool. the Refine Search link at the top to return to another page which offered a search She started to page through the results and said, “I’m only on page 13 and I have to go through 50 to see them all.” She later added, “I wish I could have categorized the paintings that were under $1000. That would have made it easier. There were 50 pages of paintings, with prices ranging from $300 through $9000.” Another user also tired of looking page to page, and said, “In my usual day, I can’t spend too much time looking at these paintings. I’m looking for a way to maybe look for paintings that are of a particular size or price. I’m looking around for that, but I don’t see anything like that.” He later added, “If I was in a hurry, I wouldn’t have found anything. I’ve noticed on other sites there’s a way to narrow, to search by category or size. By artist. For internet shopping, the idea is speed. Size, style, impressionism or modern, characteristics or categories.” Even users who noticed and used the search tool were unhappy that the listing pages did not include any sorting or filtering. One user viewed all paintings after he had used the search tool. He had been so specific with his search that he received only one result, so he switched to browsing. However, he said, “Most of them are pretty expensive. I wish there was a way to sort by price, so I could still see all the paintings, but see the ones within the price range I have.”
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Users were overwhelmed with 50 pages of paintings on Guild.com. Options to narrow the selection of paintings appeared on another page, if users clicked on Refine Search.
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The site offered a search tool to narrow choices, but it was only available on the main Paintings category page, below the fold. Several users did not notice this option. (The red line indicates the fold, or bottom of the visible page.)
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Guild.com later became ArtfulHome.com. The site included filters, letting users select a category, price range, discipline, color, theme, artist, material or artist location in order to narrow options.
The filter on Nike’s site worked well for users. Users were looking for a particular hat, and easily navigated to Women, Accessories, and Headwear, and then located the correct grey hat. One user said, “I’m going to Headwear. And then color — that’s very good. We’re going to go with grey, and there’s the hat.” She later said, “It took you right to what you wanted, without any hesitation.”
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Users had no trouble using the filtering tools on the Nike site.
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Offer both sorting and filtering options, as appropriate.
Sites do not have to offer only filtering or only sorting. A combination works well. For instance, users can find all mahogany 4-drawer dressers on a site through filtering (Dressers > Mahogany > 4 Drawer), but then sort by price or brand. For example, Urban Outfitters allowed to filter by category, size, color or brand and sort by price or rating or list items users alphabetically.
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Urban Outfitters’ site offered sorting above results and filters to the left of results.
49.
Pick attributes your customers understand.
Categories are useless if users don’t understand what they mean. Remember that many of your customers know far less about the details of your products than you do. Some may be buying a gift, or making a first-time purchase of an item. They can’t be expected to know every term or feature associated with a product. A user on Sasa.com looked to Ladies, then to Body, in order to locate sunscreen on the site. She then tried to use the dropdown at the top of the page to narrow her options to those relating to sunscreen. The best option was Skincare for Travelers. She said, “I will use sort by function to find sunscreen, but it seems there’s no category. Skincare for travelers? Because you need sunscreen when you go to Thailand. What’s being shown is not what I expected. Slimming products and massage oil for babies. I have to read item by item, which is quite annoying. I don’t want to spend time shopping. If I’m purchasing online, I want to cut down on time. If I spend equal time reading on my PC, that doesn’t make sense.”
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A user on Sasa’s site was confused by the slimming products and baby massage oil listed under Skincare for Travelers.
To help develop appropriate criteria, talk to salespeople in your stores, if you have physical locations, and see what customers are most concerned about. Check search logs to see what qualifiers users are entering with product names. Lands' End's site offered good options for people trying to narrow their options for pants. In the Women's section, users could select size range, leg style, specific size, color and fabric as well as narrow by fit.
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Users had several appropriate options for narrowing product selection on Lands' End's site.
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50.
Provide the most useful differentiating attributes specific to product type.
Any options for users should be based on and directly relevant to the type of product the user is viewing. Use product characteristics specific to product type. Some sites tried to use the same product characteristics regardless of product type, which resulted in near useless choices for users. Appropriate categories vary by product type. Toys can be arranged by appropriate age, clothing or shoes by size, videos by media type, and most products can be easily sorted by price range. Reel and Tower Records both showed all the variations of media and languages for each title they offered. If a customer only has a VHS player, there is no need to see other formats. Offering every option increases the possibility that customers will buy the wrong thing. One user bought a DVD instead of a VHS and another user mistakenly chose a video with Spanish subtitles. The site could have allowed users to view only their desired format and language. While the Fine Stationery site did include options for narrowing searches, they were not options that were helpful to users. A user on the site was looking at thank you notes, of which there were over 1300 examples on the site. Another saw 110 different designs for business cards on the site and said, “110 items. Oh, God.” The options for narrowing choices were Specialty Shopping, which included the categories What’s New, Now On Sale, Best Sellers, and Staff Favorites, or by brand, paper weight, or price. None of these options were helpful to users. Most users did not know the brand they wanted, nor did they know much about paper weight. Even the price option was not helpful, because it was listed as between one and four dollar signs, with no indication of what each price category meant. In fact, the use of the dollar signs confused one user, who saw the option of $$ followed by (17) to indicate the number of items in that subset. She read it as a dollar amount and said, “Let’s see what $17 can get me.” While brand and paper weight may have been pertinent options to users more familiar with stationery, those options alienated shoppers who were new to the category. Regardless, other categories would have been helpful to all users, such as color or style. Users may have been looking for white notecards, or notecards accented with blue, or a modern or traditional look. These would have been better introductory categories than weight, for instance.
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Options to narrow the product search were not helpful to users unfamiliar with stationery brands or paper weights on FineStationery.com.
Similarly, a user looking for a digital picture frame on RadioShack.com wanted to be able to sort her options by size, but the site only offered price, brand and type. She said, “They give price, brand and type, but my goal is size.”
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A user wanted to be able to sort frames by size, not by price, brand and type.
Depending on how users reached a page showing air conditioners on Home Depot’s site, they saw different options for narrowing their choices. If users navigated via Heating and Cooling, the only options presented were brand and price. One user suggested, “Size seems to be important, so maybe that’s something that should be placed on the 1st or 2nd screen when all air conditioners are displayed with their pictures. BTU, followed by parentheses with the sizing info [information about the size of room the unit could cool.]”
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If users navigated via Heating & Cooling, they could only sort air conditioners by price and brand on Home Depot's site.
However, if users navigated to air conditioners via the Appliances section of the site, the options listed were far more relevant and specific to air conditioners. These included BTU, type (window, portable or wall) and energy star compliance. These options were more clearly related to the users’ needs. One user looking rather a comparison table that he had beenArmed inadvertently looking atrealized wall air after conditioners than window air conditioners. with this new knowledge, he returned to his search results and looked to see if there was a way to select window or wall unit. Because he was in search results, and not the Appliance view of air conditioners, no option was listed. Because he could not narrow his results in the way he wanted, he tried to determine from product descriptions which were window and which were wall units. He said, “Only some say they’re window A/C’s.” This forced him to come up with an alternate plan to get to the items he wanted, so he revised his search from “air conditioners” to “window air conditioners.”
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Options were more relevant to buying an air conditioner if users navigated through the Appliances section of the site.
When good options weren’t available, two users tried to refine searches to reach the results they wanted. One user searched for “energy efficient,” and then “energy efficient air conditioner.” Another progressively searched for “air conditioners,” “air conditioners energy efficient,” “window air conditioners” and finally “air conditioners window energy efficient.” By comparison, a user who navigated directly to the category page where both energy star compliance and window unit were shown as options immediately selected his options, saw his two possible choices, saw one was backordered, and ordered the one in stock. Further, neither user who searched to find an air conditioner was confident that the items displayed really met their needs. One said, “It just brought me back to air conditioners. I don’t like that. I would like to know these are all energy efficient and go from there. Now I have to click on each to see more details about it.” Moments later, she said, “I don’t want to shop here because I don’t find what I’m looking for right away. I’d rather go to a store.” She quit the task. “Air conditioners came up right away, they came up good. But for something as easy as Energy Star, that should pop up as soon as they’re displayed.” All of these problems could have been solved if each page displaying air conditioners on the Home Depot site provided users with the same useful, relevant categories to choose from. When faced with useless options, users on Home Depot’s site turned to more and more specific search terms. Search logs may well reveal product characteristics users are looking for.
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eToys did a good job of directing users to appropriate products. One user selected an age category from the homepage, which resulted in over 300 pages of products. She selected by gender, and still had 4808 products to go through: “I don’t think I want to go through 388 pages.” However, the site provided many relevant options. Another user selected age and gender, and selected video games, then narrowed them to the appropriate game system, and a price range, which resulted in 26 matching products from an initial list of 5,484. The site did a nice job of providing appropriate categories. She ended up further refining her list by ERSB rating (selecting E for Everyone.)
eToys presented helpful options to narrow their large selection of products.
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Ensure products are listed in all appropriate categories. (Filtering must work perfectly.)
Many sites used filtering categories, but items did not appear in the categories they should have, or erroneously appeared where they should not have. Users need to be able to trust that the site is returning all relevant product options to them. When the site does not, it limits their choices, potentially missing the sale, or may lead them into believing the product meets criteria that it, in fact, does not. One user narrowed her shredder choices on Office Depot by price, selecting $100$500 as the price range, and saw shredders for $49.99 and $69.99 in the list of results. While including an item listed at $99.99 would be appropriate, as it is so close to $100, including a completely different price range is simply incorrect.
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Most users initially trust that the tools on the site will return any items matching their criteria. Every item matching the user’s selections must be displayed or users will assume the site does not carry the item. However, any time an aberration was apparent on the site, users lost trust in the site as a whole. If they navigated and found a product, but could not locate the same item via filtering tools, they started to doubt that the site was accurately listing everything that was available. A user on Overstock selected a size and style of coat, and found a coat she liked. However, the coat was only available in the wrong size. She tried repeatedly to narrow her options and see only items in her size, but the tools were not working properly and kept showing options that were not available. She said, “It’s not giving me what I’m asking for, unless I’m doing it wrong.”
A user narrowed her selection to a size, style and color on Overstock.com (suede, XL and Brown).
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When she viewed product details, her size and color was not available.
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Clearly present filtering options. Do not scatter them around the page.
If users navigated to Camcorders on the Best Buy site, they were presented with a page intended to help users narrow options within the larger category. The page asked, “Which Camcorder is right for you?” The page then prominently presented options for users to narrow their choices: by format, price range, or brand.
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BestBuy.com emphasized their options on the Camcorder category landing page.
Some sites scattered options around the product listing pages, which confused users. Several users on Office Depot’s site immediately searched the site when looking for shredders. This led to a category page with filtering options both above the results and next to them. Because of this design, the categories on the side of the page, which included price and brand, were not next to any listed products. Further, the page only showed featured items, and not the full inventory of items. All of this made the filtering tools confusing. Most users only noticed the options at the top of the page to select a type of shredder and failed to notice or use the filtering options on the side of the page. One user commented, “There were too many categories and it was hard to scan quickly. There were options on the side and on the top. It was a lot to scan in a second.”
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The design of this page featuring shredders on Office Depot’s site made it difficult for users to notice the options to narrow their selection on the side of the page. They were not displayed next to the products.
FYE.com had a similar design, with some options above the product listings and some to the side. The listings at the top of the screen were not clear, adding to the confusion.
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The options at the top of the search results on FYE.com’s site didn’t make sense to users.
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Display the most commonly used product attributes first.
Some sites revealed more product characteristics to choose from as users made more choices. This approach can work well in order to deal with limited screen real estate for listing all possible options, as well as to reveal more details as appropriate. However, users do not know that more options will appear for them. This is problematic if the characteristic they are looking for is not immediately available. On the Office Depot site, users could initially select by type of shredder in terms of heavy-, medium- or light-duty, and by price. However, they could not initially select by type of cut, such as cross-cut or diamond-cut. Once users selected a category of shredders, more options were displayed to help them narrow their choices, including cut style, height, maximum shred speed and number of sheets per pass. These options were more clear to users. However, it is questionable if height is major consideration when buying a shredder. If it is, it is likely less important than the number of pages that can be shredded at a time. Consider the order in which options are displayed. Put the most important or popular features first in the list.
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The first page for shredders on the Office Depot site gave users a choice of heavy-, medium- or light-duty machines. These terms weren’t meaningful to most users.
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Once in a product page, users could select from cut style, height, shred speed and number of sheets per pass, which were easier to understand and more relevant.
Don’t remove useful categories as users make selections. A user limited her selection of cat bowls and feeders to bowls on PetSmart.com, which narrowed the initial five pages of results to only two, which she felt was much more manageable. However, the option to select the material for the dish (ceramic or plastic) disappeared once she selected bowls. She was only interested in ceramic bowls.
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Once a user selected to view only Bowls in the Bowls & Feeders section of the site, the option to choose between ceramic and plastic products disappeared.
54.
If there are a large number of options in a category, such as brand, consider making only the most common visible by default and hiding the rest behind a link.
It may not be possible to show users all options within a particular criterion. For instance, a set of 20 products could well include 15-20 brands. Show users the brands which offer the most products, or the most popular brands, and provide a link to view more categories.
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OfficeDepot.com listed a partial list of options for some criteria, followed by a link to See All.
55.
Offer further refinement of categories as needed.
For some criteria, it makes sense to start with broad categories, and then give users further options within those categories once they’ve made their selections. For instance, a user looking for a shredder on Office Depot searched, then used the options on the side of the screen to narrow his choices. He selected a price range of $100-$500, which was quite a large price range. After selecting this range, however, a price option was offered on the side of the screen with $100 price increments.
56.
List the number of products available with each attribute.
Stating the number of items that would be returned when a user clicked a particular category or option was helpful to users. It helped set user expectations, so they were not disappointed when one item appeared, or overwhelmed when 200 appeared. ParagonSports.com clearly listed category options, but with no indication of how many items would be returned for each selection. This could have been accomplished simply by adding parentheses with the number of results after each criterion.
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Paragon Sports listed criteria clearly, but did not indicate how many items were available in each.
Vitacost.com nicely showed the users the number of items available in each category. For instance, the site indicated there were 12 Vitacost Brand items, and 62 Dymatize items.
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Vitacost listed the number of products in each category in parentheses.
57.
Let users select more than one attribute in a category as appropriate.
Unless categories are mutually exclusive, let users select more than one criterion in a category when sorting products. For instance, users may want to see products under $100 though price options are divided into Under $20, $20-$50, and $50-$100.
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eBay allowed users to search by multiple criteria, such as both gray and tan interiors.
58.
Allow users to select criteria in more than one category.
Sephora.com included options for users at the top of the page. For instance, in the eyeshadow section, users could narrow by brand, sort the items on the page, or narrow by category. However, users had to select either brand or category, but could not select both. It would have been helpful to have the ability to narrow options by both brand and category. For instance, a user might be looking for Sephora brand powder eyeshadow.
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Users on Sephora could narrow by brand or category, but not both.
On LionBrand.com, a user had navigated to a list of free knitting patterns for infants. The site allowed users to sort the patterns by type, skill level or yarn, which was helpful. She sorted by yarn because “Homespun is the only kind of yarn I like.” However, when she did so, she was removed from the infant section of knitting patterns and was shown all free knitting patterns for Homespun yarn. She said, “Oh, did this take me out of baby stuff? I wanted to stay in Baby.”
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Users could not narrow products by both category (such as Infant) and yarn type. A user who sorted the above list by yarn type received results for all patterns, not just infant patterns.
A user searched for LCD monitors on Target’s site. He was first annoyed that he could not immediately sort by brand. The site divided results into categories, and he had to click into a category in order to get filters specific to that category. He was then annoyed because the site himboth. to select both“It a brand and price I range. He could select brand ordidn’t price,allow but not He said, doesn’t adda filters. want Samsung, in my price range. But they only have either or.” Similarly, a user looking for a flat screen TV complained that he could only look by brand or by size on Best Buy, but not by a combination of both. He could view by size and the sort by brand, but could not list only the brand he wanted in a specific size.
59.
Show users what attributes they’ve already selected.
Users should be able to easily see which criteria they’ve selected, so they can edit or change their choices as needed as well as review what they’ve already chosen. One user looking for microwaves on the Comet site accidentally moved into a view of only one brand, Hinari. He then thought the site only offered three microwaves in the category he was looking for. This caused him to think the site didn’t have any microwaves that met his criteria, when in fact it did.
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The site listed the user’s selected criteria at the top of the page, next to a page heading that was followed by instructions about how to narrow the user’s choices. However, the user scrolled so the top result was close to the top of the page, which meant that all the indications that he was in the Hinari section were off-screen. It would have been better if the selected criteria lined up with the top product listing.
Comet showed users their selected criteria at the top of the left column, above the area where products appeared.
When a user scrolled to focus on the first listed item, the indication that he was in the Hinari section was almost off-screen.
Some sites listed the selected criteria across the top of the screen, like navigational breadcrumbs. This worked best if the links appeared at the top of the area where products were displayed, rather than at the top of the screen near the navigation.
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On Home Depot’s site, selections were listed at the top of the screen. They were too high on the page for users to notice them. They were too far away from the area where users were making selections and viewing products. In this instance, listing the criteria beneath the Air Conditioners heading would have been easier for users t o notice.
Home Depot listed users’ selected criteria, but in an area of the page that was visually removed from either the selection criteria or the product listings.
When users didn’t know what section they were in, they sometimes thought inventory on a site was more limited than it was. A user on Wine.com thought the site only offered two types of wine for less than $40 because he selected the $20$40 price range while already in Wine Collections. Part of the problem here was the category name Wine Collections. He thought that was a link to the site’s collection of wines, and not a link to sets of wines that were sold as a package. But, he was also confused because he didn’t realize where he was in the site. Like Home Depot, Wine.com listed the users’ selections at the top of the page like breadcrumbs. In this design, the breadcrumbs were in the body of the page, which would have been helpful if there had not been a paragraph of introductory text between the breadcrumbs and the wines. Only later when he searched for “Chile” and received results did he realize there were more than a few wines for less than $40. He said, “Here we have cheaper wines. We have wines for less than $20, but earlier the site didn’t mention them.”
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A user thought Wine.com offered only two bottles of wine for less than $40, in part due to the category name Wine Collections and in part due to the placement of the breadcrumbs indicating his location in the site.
The Scholastic Store did a good job of showing users’ selected criteria. The site summarized the users’ selections at the top of the list of criteria, with the label Current Search and the option to clear all criteria or clear individual selections via an X.
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The Scholastic Store clearly listed the user’s selections.
60.
Let users clear previous selections.
Once users have made a selection to help narrow choices, allow them to move back up to the higher level list of products. Users should be able to deselect preferences, select new preferences, or select no preference. Users were able to successfully add and remove options on the Nike.com site. As users made selections, such as Women, Accessories and Headwear in the example shown below, they appeared at the top of the side navigation. Users could then click Clear to remove any previously selected option.
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Users successfully added and removed options on the Nike site.
A user on Circuit City couldn’t determine how to change her price selection when looking at digital cameras. Her selection was listed at the top of the page, but it wasn’t clear how to remove it. She navigated back, via the Back button, to the point where she made a selection in order to change it. The site could have shown her selection with a way to remove it – using a Clear link, Show All link, or a small X to indicate that it could be removed.
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A user did not know how to clear her price selection on Circuit City’s site.
On Lands' End, a user wanted to remove all her criteria and see all her available options again. To try to do so, she clicked on the broadest category name on the page. However, this didn't work. She still saw only the five pairs of pants which met her initial criteria selection. Rather than forcing the user to remove each individual criterion, it would be preferable to allow users to click on the category name and "reset" the page. This user instead returned to the homepage of the site and started her search again.
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A user expected she could remove her filtering options by clicking Pants & Shorts at the top of the left-hand column (indicated with a red arrow) on Lands' End's site. This did not work.
Instead, users had to go back into the filtering menus to remove their criteria, selecting Show All.
61.
Don’t show filtering options when only one item is listed.
If users saw a page showing only one item, but with options for narrowing their choices, they often thought they could change the number of items shown via those options. This was not the case (unless users removed criteria), but the presence of these options made users think this was true. For example, one user navigated to the Gore-Windstopper Pants category on ParagonSports.com when looking for ski pants. Though only one pair was listed, she tried to use the menus to narrow the options based on size. She said, “That’s the only one? Small, that’s it? It’s not giving me the sizes I’m looking for. Only small.”
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Users assumed if options were listed that they would be able to further refine their searches, even if only one product was listed.
On Overstock’s site, if a user narrowed options down to just one product, the side of the page where options were normally listed switched to read No More Refinements Available.
Overstock’s site informed users when there were no more filters available.
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62.
When displaying products that meet users’ criteria, use images that reflect the users’ selections.
If user can make selections based on visible characteristics, such as product color, make sure that the product images returned show the item with that characteristic. Don’t show a brown product image for a search for black shoes. Users were very confused on JCPenney.com when looking for carry-on luggage. They navigated to a category for carry-on luggage, but the product images showed sets of luggage, rather than the particular items that met the users’ criteria (carry-on’s).
Users narrowed their options in the Luggage section of JCPenney.com to carry-on items, but product images showed sets of luggage, rather than focusing on bags that met airlines’ carry-on regulations.
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About the Authors Amy Schade is a Director at Nielsen Norman Group. She has led research and co-
authored NN/g reports on the usability of intranets, email newsletters, and site maps as well as the e-commerce report series. Schade works with clients large and small in industries including e-commerce, music, publishing, banking, government, telecommunications, non-profit and education, including extensive work on corporate intranets. She has conducted worldwide user research, including longitudinal studies, remote studies and eyetracking research, running studies in the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia and Australia. She regularly presents tutorials on user testing, intranet usability, mobile user experience, writing for the Web and email newsletters. Before joining NN/g, Schade worked as an information architect at arc eConsultancy. She previously held a variety of positions in advertising and Web production. She holds a Master's degree from the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University and a BA in Communications from the University of Pennsylvania.
Dr. Jakob Nielsen is a principal of Nielsen Norman Group. He is the founder of the
“discount usability engineering” movement, which emphasizes fast and efficient methods for improving the quality of user interfaces. Nielsen, noted as “the world’s leading expert on Web usability” by U.S. News and World Reportand “the next best thing to a true time machine” by USA Today, is the author of the bestselling book Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity (2000), which has sold more than a quarter of a million copies in 22 languages. His other books include Hypertext and Hypermedia (1990), Usability Engineering (1993), Usability Inspection Methods (1994), International User Interfaces (1996), Homepage Usability: 50 Websites Deconstructed (2001), Prioritizing Web Usability (2006), Eyetracking Web Usability (2009), and Mobile Usability (2012). In 2013 Nielsen received the SIGCHI Lifetime Achievement Award for Human–Computer Interaction Practice. Nielsen’s Alertbox column on Web usability has been published on the Internet since 1995 and currently has about 200,000 readers. From 1994 to 1998, Nielsen was a Sun Microsystems Distinguished Engineer. His previous affiliations include Bell Communications Research, the Technical University of Denmark, and the IBM User Interface Institute. He holds 79 US patents, mainly on ways of making the Internet easier to use.
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Acknowledgments The first edition of this report was researched and written by Jakob Nielsen, Rolf Molich, Carolyn Snyder and Susan Farrell. We would like to thank all the individuals who participated in each round of user testing for their time and feedback. Also, thank you to Celeste Buckhalter for her assistance with the Georgia studies, to Susan Pernice for her help with recruiting for and coordinating the studies, and to Luice Hwang for her work coordinating the international studies.
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