[Sigia-l] Search is broken (was: Outside In)

[Lyle Kantrovich]

On 10/19/05, Austin Govella <austin.govella at gmail.com> wrote:
> Search is an application like any other, and the existence of
> separate, unequal "simple" and "advanced" interfaces shows just how
> skewed, and isolated, search development has been. For 10 years.

What experience or facts (not opinions) are you basing this on?

Some might say "search" is unlike most other applications in many
ways.  I'd say "search" isn't Search.  My users/site/context may need
a different search than yours.  I'm not a fan of advanced search in
general, but you're making some bold generalizations here that seem to
be 100% opinion.  If it is purely your opinion, what makes you a
search expert?

>From my perspective, search engine technology has come a long way in
the last 9 years that I've been building search for web sites
(intranet, extranet, Web) and also managing search on a site or two. 
The tools have gotten much better, as has research and understanding
of how to manage the search experience for end users (see my reply to
Paula).  Most searches still fail a lot of the time...but I think it's
gotten a lot better.

(I'm assuming here your talking specifically about web search, not
general information / doc retrieval apps like desktop search or other
search interfaces.)

--
Lyle

--------------------------
Lyle Kantrovich
Blog: Croc O' Lyle
http://crocolyle.blogspot.com