[Sigia-l] People thinking like computers (was ROI/Value of Search Engine...)

[Boniface Lau]

> From: sigia-l-admin at asis.org [mailto:sigia-l-admin at asis.org]On
> Behalf Of Laura Norvig
>  
[...]
> Many of the examples that have been given in this discussion are
> ones where the user might have been better off browsing than
> searching,

That is certainly a possibility. Amazon can indeed improve its
search. But they were not the point.

The point was whether search capability is "worse than nothing" or
whether Amazon gets into trouble handling non-uniquely-identified
content.


> and the search results could gently suggest that.
> 
> Boniface gave examples such as:
> 
> I went to amazon.com, selected "computers", then entered "laptops"
> into the search box
> 
> Let's face it, there are users out there who aren't going to take
> the time to navigate to the "computer" section first.

True. But unless we have systems that can read people's mind, users
will have to play by the rules. Otherwise, usability testing should
be done with monkeys.


Boniface