2. Search UX Webinar John Sutton
November 17, 2011 Senior Information Architect
NavigationArts helps market-leading organizations optimize
their online channels for communications, commerce and
community.
We offer a full-range professional services related to the
planning, evaluation, design and development of effective
websites, intranets, portals and web applications
3. Search UX Webinar
November 17, 2011
Founded 2001
~110 Employees
Locations in Washington DC, Boston and
Philadelphia
Ruling Passion:
User Experience is the only sustainable
competitive advantage
4. Search UX Webinar
November 17, 2011
Little bit about me:
+ NavigationArts since 2005
+ Began my career in UX in 1999
+ Associations and NPOs, B2B/B2C Products, Government, P2P Social, etc.
5. Search UX Webinar
November 17, 2011
This Presentation Includes How We:
+ Use Search as the engine to drive User Experience in order to breakdown organizational silos
+ Provide everyday users with the tools to become power searchers
+ Leverage Enterprise Search as a framework for a User Experience
Key Assumptions for this Presentation:
+ Solid foundation of the interworking of search tools
+ Multifaceted nature of content and documents
+ Understanding of taxonomy and how to derive one within your organization
6. Search UX Webinar
November 17, 2011
Before we begin…
+ Search is not just a box and button that returns results
+ It’s an engine that drives a User Experience
+ Types of sites this works well on:
- Large catalog product sites
- Sites that present vast and diverse set of documentation
- And, complex sites with a lot of connective tissue
7. Search UX Webinar
November 17, 2011
Unlock information and breakdown organizational silos to meet user needs
+ Organizational constructs often conflict with user needs
+ Provide opportunities for users to discover organization wide content
+ Unlocks discoverability to enhance the user experience
- Realize knowledge propagation
- Task efficiencies
- And, content monetization opportunities
12. Search UX Webinar
November 17, 2011
Enabling laypeople to become power searchers
+ Boolean structures are difficult concepts for a majority to grasp
+ Inherent risk of opening up query structures to unskilled query builders
+ Hide query complexity through navigation and filtering
+ Leverage the understanding on contextual relationships between documents, people and
context to define navigation and filtering
+ Provide intuitive controls for filtering that correlate to the intended use
16. Search UX Webinar
November 17, 2011
Search is less of an appliance and more of a framework
+ Define interconnectivity between content, people and context
+ Design from the bottom, up by identifying the core page and it’s contextual relationships
+ Provide access points into those relationships to enhance discoverability
+ Connect the dots by designing a navigation scheme that is powered by search
21. Search UX Webinar
November 17, 2011
If you take anything away from this presentation it should be:
+ Search is not a box and a button. It’s an engine that can drive a user experience
+ Breaking down organizational silos will unlock content and increase it’s value for users
+ Provide the tools for users to be power searchers, but don’t make them think about it
Editor's Notes
At NavigationArts, we live and breathe User Experience from strategy to implementation.
So let’s dive in…
So let’s dive in…
Organizational constructs – for example, a company’s organizational structure erect artificial barriers to content if the site is organized in this fashion
Organizational constructs – for example, a company’s organizational structure erect artificial barriers to content if the site is organized in this fashion
PFC Energy is the analyst to the energy industry, who’s clients require a variety of information that pertains to the production, distribution and retail pipeline.Organized by services that align to stages of energy production
We maintained this organizational structure to assist with sales and users that consume content in this manner
But their clients wanted to cut across these silos to get at content that addressed their needs at the moment they realized a need. So, we organized the site by other content facets [Regions, Countries, Companies, Topics and Sectors], and exposed facet values within each of these mega drop-down panels for easy access.
Once you clicked on a facet value, you are brought to a page that lists content that has been tagged with that facet value. Then you can winnow down the list to find the content that addresses your need.
If we come to the realization that very few users will understand how to craft and execute a query structure, we can begin to help them to craft them on their own. Without them even knowing it. To do this, we must being with an understanding of what they are looking for, and create the navigation to those items that are wrapped in pre-defined query strings. Then provide them with intuitive controls to filter out the noise until they get to what they want.
Mid-Atlantic Apartment Communities owns a large portfolio of apartment communities in the sunbelt. Location, size, configuration, price and availability are important facets for their users.
The use of maps to quickly identify locations, and sliders to band specific criteria is helpful in this case to narrow the results set by what is acceptable to the apartment seeker
Quick access to floor plans, where they are located on a map of the complex, and a one-click availability check makes it easy to get engaged with the site and interact with the property.
Organizational constructs – for example, a company’s organizational structure erect artificial barriers to content if the site is organized in this fashion
Institute of Medicine is a prestigious membership organization that conducts large scale studies, within defined groups of experts, to answer critical questions regarding public health. Their audiences are Members of Congress and their staff, Federal Agencies, researchers, and the press.
In this example, the framework began by identifying the core page users will want to access [Report Detail Page]. Then identify the contributing factors that brought this report to life: people who worked on it [the board that spawned the activity, which is made up of members and staff], and even the meetings that took place including the meeting materials to arrive at the recommendations contained in the report.
This lead to the design of the report page
All of these links provide opportunities to pivot into areas of interest that pertain to the content they have accessed.
