[Sigia-l] Findability (classification and search)

[Boniface Lau]

> From: sigia-l-admin at asis.org [mailto:sigia-l-admin at asis.org]On
> Behalf Of Gerry McGovern
> 
[...]
> 
> One of the websites, I believe is gap.com. 

I tried visiting gap.com but that site seems to be dead.


[...]
> UIE has done some very good work on search. Here's one article:
> http://www.uie.com/searchar.htm

I remember reading that article and found it misleading.

First, most of the mentioned issues were about interface design. The
fact that some search engines have interface problems doesn't mean
search functionality is not needed.

Second, I felt the article was exaggerating. For example, it said
"Lots of users misspell keywords." Then it cited DevEdge as an example
by saying that "3% of searches contained misspelled words".  3% is by
no means a lot.

Third, I felt the article was nitpicking. For example, it said "Most
sites use a full-text search, which sometimes returned irrelevant and
often amusing results." But it did not quantify what it meant by
"sometimes". After all, no one expects a search tool to be perfect.

All that were used to support the extremist statement, "Our data showed
that today's on-site search engines are worse than nothing -
significantly worse." 

BTW, a similar bias against search was expressed in:

    http://www.uie.com/Articles/why_amazon_succeeds.htm

It said:

JS> What did users type in when they were searching for a DVD player?
JS> Well, they didn't type in "Panasonic DVD-RV31K DVD Player (Black)"
JS> (the product name). They didn't even try to type in "Panasonic"
JS> (the manufacturer).
JS>
JS> In our study, when users were shopping for DVD players, they typed
JS> in "DVD player". This is typical for non-uniquely-identified content.

After reading that article, back in Jun/2002, I went to amazon.com and
did a search using the term "DVD player". I found:

    RCA RC5400P Portable DVD Player 

    Samsung DVD-P421 Progressive-Scan DVD Player 

    Philips DVDR985 Progressive-Scan DVD Recorder and Player 

listed under the first section "Electronics". That is a pretty good
search result for people shopping for a DVD player. So I emailed Jared
Spool asking him to clarify. But he didn't reply.

ISTM on the issue of search engine, Jared Spool became an extremist.
Commonsense tells me to be cautious about extremist opinions.


Boniface