[Sigia-l] search interface as IA

[Thomas Vander Wal]

Oddly, the lack of links and clickable navigation makes the site
impossible for a search engine to scrape.

There are two things about this site that jump to mind for most user
testing I have done on sites over the past five years.

1 - Many users go to search very quickly and like to do this.  The odd
thing that comes up is users having a difficult time finding search. 
One thing we did to improve the a current site we are working on was
improve search (we switched to the Google Appliance to drive search,
it is not the best, but it was cheap, simple to install, the results
are far better than the Inktomi search tool that was 6 times the cost
and took a team of four to maintain and tweak).  Using simple words
Google is returning the desired information (from 80,000 pages
searched) in the top 5 links 70% of the time and in the top 10 around
90% of the time.  The Inktomi tool was 30% in the top 10 and 45% in
the top 40 links returned.

2 - Very few users use drop downs for navigation.  Most users do not
see the drop downs and the people that do see it do not associate it
with a means to get around the site.

Very clean, but very odd.  The music seems to be an odd match to the
photos used.  It would be interesting to see what research these folks
did, if any.  We find the credibility of the information is decreased
if the site makes sounds, but this has been anecdotal info in our
tests and we have not done large enough test to actually put this
question to the test and what audiences does this apply.

All the best,
Thomas


On Fri, 08 Oct 2004 12:40:05 +1000, Eric Scheid
<eric.scheid at ironclad.net.au> wrote:
> My local newspaper can be found at http://www.smh.com.au/
> Every now and then I mistype and get http://www.smh.com/
> 
> Normally, when I'm looking to read the local news from Sydney, Australia I'm
> just unlikely to be interested in viewing the glossy front end to the
> Sarasota Memorial Hospital. Life's like that.
> 
> I also live in a building named Serendipity.
> 
> Quick, go take a look at the http://www.smh.com/ website ... they've almost
> completely done away with having a "main navigation" conceptual framework.
> You access their entire website content via a search interface. I say
> "almost" because you'll also see a popup menu of "destinations", which map
> closely to what would have been their top level navigation. The advantage to
> using a pop up menu is that they can have longer titles for each choice,
> whereas if they were spatially placed buttons in a main navigation button
> grid they'd be very very cramped.
> 
> At first I thought the search thing was just a front page gimmick, and once
> I progressed past that then the usual main-nav structures would appear.
> Turns out though that they don't. The left-nav column stays the same with
> just the two elements: a search box and a destinations pop-up.
> 
> I'm guessing that for their intended audience it's important not to
> overwhelm with a very cluttered interface.
> 
> It also appears they are doing a bets bets search results thing. There would
> be (say) a dozen titled links against a particular category (love the
> extended description of each category btw), and sometimes a "more >>" link.
> The 'more' link leads to a more mundane search results list. Take a look to
> see what I mean.