[Sigia-l] search logs - relevance of penultimate referrers?

[Listera]

Jared:

> If a tool like Eric's can help quickly diagnose missing trigger words so
> they can be properly placed on the page, everybody becomes happier (in my
> world). 

I think we agree on what the problem may be, but disagree on how to solve
it. Yes, it would be helpful to have explicit links derived from user
attempts exposed on the page. But in many instances that could lead to UI
scaling problems. 

There's finite real estate on any given page to place links and you could
potentially have a large set of links. You'll quickly end up making
arbitrary decisions on what to include/exclude. On high-volume sites, links
that fall off the top XX list and thus not exposed could have helped tens of
thousands of users in absolute numbers.

In an app I'm currently designing, I'll likely use a Google Suggest type of
functionality where words entered into a searchbox dynamically reveal such
potential links in real-time and in-line. Since I can procedurally control
what gets exposed in context, I have far greater control on both the kind
and the absolute number of links that can be revealed, without the UI
scaling issues involved. Indeed this can be made self-referential in the
sense that, through actual usage, the feedback loop can begin to suggest
statistically relevant links automatically, if you allow it.

Of course, these are usability, interface, interaction and, ahem, extreme
user experience matters, so they are utterly beyond the scope of IA, but I
digress at your mercy.

----
Ziya

"Innovate as a last resort."