[Sigia-l] ROI/Value of Search Engine Design - Resources?

[Jared M. Spool]

>Would you mind suggesting a query in place of "DVD player" to show how
>Amazon gets into trouble handling non-uniquely-identified content?

You'll get in trouble thinking in terms of disembodied queries. You need to 
think in terms of what your users enter into the site. Take these examples:

(1) A user, looking for "a low-cost, yet reliable laptop computer that will 
last 4 years for his son who is going away to school" typed "laptops" into 
Amazon's search and receives 210 results, for which he has no way of 
discerning if any of these computers match his criteria.

(2) A user, looking for "the film thingy you put into a digital camera" 
typed "digital camera film" into Amazon's search and receives all sorts of 
interesting results, none of which are the 32mb Compact Flash card he 
really was looking for.

(3) A user, looking for "a pair of leather shoes I'd seen at urban 
outfitters" typed in "leather shoes" and gave up when seeing the site 
return 2,113 results, even though the BDG Leather Boots she wanted were 
available on the site for $29 less than what she ended up paying in the store.

Sure, 'laptops' works as a query. It didn't work for our user because they 
didn't get what they needed. As I said, users interact with 
non-uniquely-identified content differently than with uniquely-identified 
content, such as books or cds.

That was the point with DVD Players. Tonight, Amazon gives 485 results to 
the query 'DVD Player', so it must work as a query. But did it work for the 
user who just wanted to buy his niece a niece DVD player and didn't know 
the first thing about them? It's a very different experience than buying 
his niece the latest Britney Spears album.

Again, I apologize that we weren't clear in the article.

Jared

Jared M. Spool
User Interface Engineering
http://www.uie.com    jspool at uie.com

Don't miss User Interface 7 West, March 23-27, Burlingame, CA. 
http://www.uiconf.com