These slides are from a talk that Tyler Tate presented at the Enterprise Search London meetup on February 4, 2010. Careful observation seems to reveal three different approaches to search suggestions: completion, suggestion, and instant results. These approaches range in cognitive burden on the one hand, and utility on the other. Completion is easy to understand and almost always results in a net benefit for the user. Suggestion, because it throws new ideas in the mix, is slightly more complex, but that is usually outweighed by its helpfulness. And finally, instant results work well for simple, highly structured data, but at times runs the risk of overwhelming the user. http://blog.twigkit.com/ http://www.meetup.com/es-london/

1. Search Suggestions
Tyler Tate

2. Three Approaches
★ Completion
★ Suggestion
★ Instant Results

4. Completion

8. Bene ts:
★ Save keystrokes
★ Prevent spelling mistakes
★ Low cognitive burden

10. Suggestions

14. Bene ts:
★ Save keystrokes
★ Prevent spelling mistakes
★ Help form useful queries
★ Gauge popularity of search terms
★ Remember previous searches

16. Instant Results

20. Bene ts:
★ View results as you type
★ Jump straight to the destination
Drawbacks:
★ Greater cognitive burden
★ Lose the ability to suggest queries

22. Getting it Right

24. Completion:
★ Bene ts almost always outweigh costs
Suggestion:
★ Usefulness varies by accuracy of suggestions
Instant Results:
★ Works best with highly structured data that need
only return a few results

25. Experimental Ideas

29. Questions for Discussion
★ Do the three categories make sense to you?
★ Do the search suggestion implementations you’ve
worked on fit into one of these categories?
★ Ideas on when to / when not to use suggestions?
★ Do you have other ‘experimental’ ideas?

30. @tylertate
http://blog.twigkit.com