1. Search Functionality
for Gmail and Google Drive
A Competitor Product Analysis For Microsoft
Mei Jen Chen
Nichole Fernkes
Sindhuja Narasimhan
Scott Taylor

2. • How do users approach Search in Gmail
and Google Drive?
• How do users interact with the Search UI
when trying to find a message or document?
• Do operators make users more successful and efficient
at finding items?
What we wanted to know

3. Why we did it
By studying how people search in Gmail
and Drive, we sought to gain insights that
could inform MLW designs, wanting to
understand what makes for a successful
search experience, what should be
avoided and what could be improved.

4. • We brought in nine seasoned
Gmail & Drive users—four
information workers and five
UW students.
• We observed them searching
in their own accounts for
their own messages and
documents.
How we did it

5. • We had them Think Out
Loud as they searched
• They answered questions
in a Task booklet
• They also made some
higher level observations in
a post-test questionnaire
How we did it

6. Findings

7. 01: People approach finding an email
or document in one of four ways

8. 01a: They use up to three keywords, most often starting
with a name or email, and using the Quick-Find pane

9. 01b: They use a combination of operators, keywords,
and auto-suggest or Quick-Find

10. 01b: They use a combination of operators, keywords,
and auto-suggest or Quick-Find

11. 01b: They use a combination of operators, keywords,
and auto-suggest or Quick-Find

12. 01c: They browse, enter a name or email as a keyword,
then browse the search results

13. 01d: They open up the Advanced Search drop-down
and check off boxes or fill in fields

14. 02: Even searchers browse sometimes
Quote:
“If it’s something I really need to get to
[in Google Drive], it’s probably in recent.”

15. 03: People can’t always remember
which account the email is in.
Most people we spoke with had multiple
Gmail accounts—personal ones as well as
one (or more) for work or school.
They wished they could include all
their accounts in a search.

16. People strongly associate email with the sender.
This makes it a good tack to take for initially
narrowing results.
04: People begin their search most often using a name
or an email address as their first keyword.

17. Also, the search box auto-suggests the name or email
address after typing just a few letters.
04: People begin their search most often using a name
or an email address as their first keyword.

18. 05: Most people find what they’re looking for
with 2-3 keywords.
We did not observe anyone typing in more than 3 keywords.
• Either they had Quick-Find success
• Or they felt that 3 words was enough to either
get the job done or
• they needed to rethink their keyword strategy
and start a new “line of thought.”

19. • Most people used the autofill suggestions to complete email
addresses as they were typing in the email sender's name
• Some people used the
autofill to help them
complete keywords as
they were typing
them out in the search.
• Most of the people
we observed leveraged
the top 3 results of
the QF Pane suggestions.
06 QF Pane Findings

20. 07: Most people don’t see advanced search.
• The Advanced Search
functions are accessed by
clicking on a small
unassuming arrow on the right
hand side of the search box.
“I didn't know
it was there.”

21. Quote:
“It’s faster for me to type [in search box] than to
actually do all of the clicks and mouse movements
[in Advanced Search]."
08: People who use operators, perceived it to be a
faster process than using advanced search

22. 09: When people try advanced search, they feel
it requires a lot of time and effort
“I can just type in multiple keywords in the
search box, the results will be the same.”
The People who use operators find that
switching from keyboard to mouse and back is
ineffecient.

23. Data derived from the post test questionnaire:
Hardly anyone used advanced search, but
conjectured that of the scenarios they would
use it for finding:
– Attachments
– to/from
– date ranges
10: People find advanced search useful
in specific cases.

24. Key Takeaways
• People try to scope a set of results using 2-3 keywords,
most often starting with the sender’s name or email
• The ability to quickly modify a query is important
• Everyone makes use of the Search Bar auto-fill feature
• Everyone found the Quick Find pane to be very useful.
Nobody mentioned it as they Thought Out Loud—its
use came naturally and intuitively

25. • People tend to have multiple accounts and wish they
could search them all simultaneously—instead of
having to perform the same search in each account
when they can’t remember who sent the mail
• Advanced Search is hard to find and mostly, people
don’t use it. When exposed to it, they expressed
doubt about using it very often in the future.
• Advanced Search was used occasionally by a third of
the people as a reference for learning operator
syntax.
Key Takeaways

27. Thank You!