Prioritizing Web Usability Nielsen and Loranger Chapter 5: Search Paul Ammann http://cs.gmu.edu/~pammann/ SWE 432 Design and Implementation of Software for the Web

Overview The State of Search How Search Should Work Search Interface Search Engine Results Pages Search Engine Optimization Current Success Rates For External Search Vastly Exceed Success Rates For Internal Search. How??? 8/23/2018

The State of Search External vs. Internal Search Success: 56% vs. 33% Internal Search Should Be Much Better Much Smaller Set of Pages Extensive Knowledge of User Intent Deep Understanding of Important Parts of Your Site Deep Understanding of Old/Obsolete Parts of Your Site Potentially More Access to Metadata Controlled Vocabulary Synonyms, Misspellings, Variants You Can Trust Your Own Customized Summary Information Third Party Web Sites Are Deliberately Dishonest No Problem with Spammers or Other Manipulation Internal Search Is A Completely Different Problem 8/23/2018

The State of Search Some Go Immediately To Search; Some Prefer Links Need to Support Both Types of Behavior Tip: How To Know If You Need Search Up to 100 pages; 100 to 1000 pages; More than 1000 pages Users Can Easily Scan a Single Page Three Simple Steps to Better Search Buy Better Search Software And Tweak The Settings Design SERP According to Usability Guidelines Improve Pages So They Work Better With Search Software Write Good Titles and Summaries Good Internal Search Requires Investment 8/23/2018

How Search Should Work Users Want Internal Search to Look Like External Search The Three Things Users Expect From Search Search Box Search Button Linear Prioritized Results Tip: When Is a Search Not a Search? Search Means Keyword Search Don’t Use The Search Button for Other Actions Enter Submit Advanced Search: IEEE Explore Parametric Search: Zappos Shoes Search Usability: Good Search and Expected Search 8/23/2018

Search Interface Standard Placement Text Box/Button Top Left or Top Right On Every Page You Can’t Easily Predict Where A User Will Become Lost Tip: Don’t Try To Be A Search Engine Don’t Search The Whole Web; Others Do That Better Query Length and Search Box Width Typical 18 Character Width Too Narrow for 27% Queries Recommend 27 Character Width: Accommodates 90% Specialized Sites Need More: American Heart Association Advanced Search And Scoped Search: Generally Avoid Boolean Algebra Too Hard For Most Users Your Search Should Be “Normal” 8/23/2018

Search Engine Results Pages Number One Guideline: Mimic Major Search Engines Google, Bing, Yahoo No Need for Numbering or Relevancy Rankings Users Will Scan From Top Anyway Each Search Should Start With a Clickable Headline Follow With 2/3 Line Summary: BASF Target Practice Fitt’s Law: Time to Click a Target Is: Inversely Proportional to Size of Target Proportional to Log of Distance to Target Badly Designed SERP Requires Users To Click Tiny Numbers Arrows or “Next”/”Prev” Links Are Better Major Search Engines Have Converged 8/23/2018

Search Engine Results Pages (2) Tip: SERP Dating Conventions Use International Format, But Spell Out Month So September 17, 2009 is 2009-09-17 or 2009-September-17 Date Should Match “Real” Writing of Document Tip: Help Bad Spellers Use Prefix To Suggest Complete Search Queries Provide a “Did You Mean” link Place Above Search Hits 7.5% of Queries Contained Typos BASF again: “Polyethylene Fibers” vs. “Polythelene Fibers” Repeat on Bing and Google Helping User vs. Punishing User 8/23/2018

Search Engine Results Pages (3) Best Bets Definition: Manually Link Query to One or More Pages External Search Engines Don’t Trust Site Suggestions One Of the Many Prices of Spam But Internal Search Engines Can and Should Don’t Differentiate Best Bets From Search Engine Results Lest User Will Think They Are Ads… Mine Search Logs For Most Frequent Queries Test Against Search Engine Add Best Bet if Necessary Adding Value to Internal Search 8/23/2018

Search Engine Results Pages (4) Four Ways to Build Best Bets Product Names/Brand Names Product Numbers/SKUs/Catalog Numbers/Other Codes Category Names Use Names Commonly Accepted In Your Industry Names of Top Executives/Key Staff Maintaining Best Bets Maintenance is Hard! Best Bet Maintenance Requires Process and Staffing Interesting Example: HP Note Result Categories When Searching For Specific Product Search Still Has a Long Way to Go 8/23/2018

Search Engine Results Pages (5) Sorting the SERP Usually Sort by Relevance Don’t Confuse User With Options Exceptions Sort By Date For Users Monitoring Updates Example: MSNBC (Search “Redoubt Volcano”) Sort By Price For Product Heavy Sites Example: Amazon (Search “DeWalt Power Tools”) For Product Sites, SERP Needs to Show a LOT of Results Example: Exterior Lighting Universe (Search For a Light) Default Presentation Matches Typical User 8/23/2018

Search Engine Results Pages (6) No Results Found Blank Page is Bad! Help User Modify Query To Get Better Results Present Bad Query For Editing, With Suggestions Good Time To Admit To Having “Advanced Search” Example of What Not To Do: Organic Produce Shoppe One Result Found Option: Go Straight to Page Acceptable for Search on Known Item, such as SKU Example: Home Depot (Search Brand Name vs. SKU) Bu Usually Violates User Expectations Showing SERP Gives User Option To Modify Query Special Search Results Demand Extra Care 8/23/2018

Search Engine Optimization Huge Incentive To Improve Web Sites Search Ranking Black Hat SEO Tricks: Don’t Do These Things! Cloaking Send Regular Pages To Users vs. “Doorway Pages” to Spiders In 2006, Google banned BMW’s main site for cloaking Search Spam Creating Huge Numbers of Content Free Pages With Lots of Keywords Link Farms Establish Bogus Web Sites That Link to Your Site Comment Spam (Blogs, Discussion Forums, etc) Post TextWith Links Back To Your Site Domain Repurposing Buy Website With Respectable Ranking and Replace Content Bad Guys Are Serious, And They Make Money At It 8/23/2018

Search Engine Optimization(2) Three White-Hat SEO Techniques Linguistic SEO, Architectural SEO, Reputation SEO Naming Names Picking A New Company Name or Brand Name? Test Search Name and Avoid Collisions Example: First Division Association, est. 1918 Tip: The Beauty of Using Text-Only Ads Most Search Engine Ads Are Small Boxes of Text Most Users Ignore Media-Rich Ads Search Spiders Are The World’s Most Influential Blind Readers 8/23/2018

Search Engine Optimization(3) Tip: Tracking The Value of Search Ads If You Pay For Search Ads, You Have To Track Visitor Value Search Visitors Are More Valuable Than Content Visitors The Top Linguistic SEO Guideline Speak the User’s Language, Not Corporate Jargon Search Query Logs For User Vocabulary Listen to Users in User Testing Bloggers Are Leading Vocabulary Indicators Emphasize Words That Describe the User Problem Users Search Problems, Not Solutions Monitoring Users To Understand Their Behavior 8/23/2018

Search Engine Optimization(4) Tip: Keyword Overuse Backfires If Your Content Is Incomprehensible, You Still Lose Tip: Think Phrases, Not Keywords Longer Phrases Suggest Proximity To Task Completion Architectural SEO Ensuring Your Pages Can Be Indexed Supplement Images, etc. With Text Having A Linking Structure To Guide Search Spiders Dynamic Pages Are The Issue Spiders Ignore Anything After the”?” in a URL Use Descriptive Text in the Link Link More To Main Page For Concept Construct Your Pages As Search Engines Expect 8/23/2018

Search Engine Optimization(5) Reputation SEO Usually, “Good” Sites Score Higher Than “Bad” Sites Links Are Good Links From High Reputation Sites Are Better People Naturally Cite Sites They Believe Are High Quality Link Rot Erodes Perceived Quality Currently, An Overreliance on Links For Reputation 8/23/2018