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

[Alex Bainbridge]

Hi all,

I wont get into the detail of this very interesting discussion except to
make one point.

If a user 'searches' there is an opportunity for poor implementation of
error handling - hence the design may appear less than optimal.

If a user uses a category directory there is minimal opportunity for poorly
implemented error handling as the user is following links and is unlikely to
'mis select'

I have just conducted a 12 user usability test for a forthcoming
(commercial) report I am publishing in 2 weeks time. The title of the report
is 'Hotel search design & usability report' - i.e. how to handle search
functionality of large scale hotel reservation websites

On hotel reservation websites a directory navigation style is generally
replaced by a 'drill down' map directory search (where a user zooms in
through continents, countries, regions, cities, districts etc - such as on
the http://www.us.placestostay.com map search). No users experienced any
task failure on searches where this style of navigation was used.

Approximately 10-25% of users who used a 'search box' failed to locate
hotels that matched their requirements solely due to poor error message
display and implementation, even on industry leading travel websites (often
due to the ambiguous search term the user has entered - was the search for
Paris, Texas or Paris, France?)

(We tested 5 sites with 12 users, but it should be noted that this was not
statistically significant etc etc etc)

These are for searches for a selection of hotels in the same destination -
rather than for specific hotels.

alex

www.travelucd.com - travel & hospitality design & usability research etc