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

[Boniface Lau]

> From: sigia-l-admin at asis.org [mailto:sigia-l-admin at asis.org]On
> Behalf Of Ken Bryson
> 
> At this point I'm surprise nobody has brought up the issue (albeit
> librarian-centric) of known item vs. subject searching. That is,
> depending on whether you know exactly what you're looking for
> (Linksys Wifi) or just the general category/subject of items
> (wireless routers), you will likely take a different route to
> finding your information.

Even if people don't know exactly what they are looking for, they may
still use search as their first choice. 

Let's say someone wants to buy a gift for his niece who is a ballet
fan and often talks about Balanchine this and Balanchine that. So,
when he goes to Amazon looking for gift ideas, he may just type
"Balanchine" into the search box to search under "All Products". He
will find items under Books, Video, DVD, Classical Music, etc. Now
imagine what he would have to go through, had he not used search, to
discover items under all those categories.

Whether people use search or links is affected by many factors,
including their past experience at other sites as well as their
personal preference, e.g. whether they are search-dominant.

When a site supports both search and links, the two complement each
other. Thus, either one does NOT have to be perfect.

When a site does not support search, its links better be perfect
because it has no fallback when its links failed to turn up what the
customers are looking for. As someone once said, "To demand perfection
is sensible; to expect it can be fatal."

Relying solely on links is putting all eggs in one basket. Commonsense
tells me that it is unwise.


Boniface