Modern Search Criteria

Internet sites are becoming more and more complex. Currently, largely due to content marketing and seo, even small companies can have more than 300-400 pages with different data types and sections. Unfortunately, most companies do not have a usability specialist or someone who understands this issue. Considering these two factors, as the number of pages grows, it becomes more and more difficult for the user to get to the necessary information. The solution is simple - to equip sites with a truly convenient and modern search. But when we reach the development of a search, we are confronted with the fact that there is no understanding of what criteria to consider and what features need to be added. In this article, I collected the main criteria of modern search.


Search must:
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- Process the results "on the fly", display tips (Yandex, Google). This will significantly reduce the time to search for the necessary information, as well as help reduce the risk of "empty issuance";

- Be able to work with typos. If you look at how users work with prompts and live search, you can note that they enter one letter, then look at the hint and enter the next one. This happens because of the fear of getting an empty issue. This applies not only to live search, but to any other;

- Live search should not work immediately after selecting a result. This problem is especially acute on mobile devices. Driving in a difficult and long word, we rejoice if a hint with it pops up, but at the end we want to add a clarification, such as price, buy, address. If, after selecting a hint, the search begins immediately, then we have to wait for the download and only then refine the request;

- Trigger on the enter key. Surprisingly, many developers still do not consider this as a standard;

- Consider the morphology. It is much more difficult to develop, but the inclusion of this item will reduce the risk of "empty issuance", which is almost equivalent to leaving the user from the site;

- To be able to search for the wrong keyboard layout. Significantly improves user experience, does not work with "mobile" users;

- Have a dictionary of synonyms, abbreviations, stable expressions. In any industry there are any. This dictionary is the resource administrator. It is necessary to collect statistics of search queries and manually make links between specific queries and pages;

- Save queries that led to a blank issue (perhaps incorrect input or use of abbreviations) or, on the contrary, found too many (for the analysis of filter operation).

Search results filters:

When should I install search results filters? Yes, almost always! It does not depend on the size of your site. It depends on the type of information. If your information can be assigned several criteria, and your visitors can search for information in the context of several criteria, then filters will help speed up the conversion path. For example, you have a blog, a pricing section, a service section, and all the other information on the site. You need a filter that takes into account the section, and if the user selects the “Price” or “Services” section in the filter, it will be nice to add a filter by the categories of your services.

Filter criteria:

- Filters should be interdependent - when selecting values ​​in one filter, dependent filters should change or disappear / appear new filters. For example, we have a filter with a type of information containing: a blog, prices, services, reviews. When choosing a service, a new filter should appear with categories of services, and when choosing a blog - with categories. The filter should immediately exclude empty sections. If we selected a condition that excludes several filters or filter sections, then it is better to display them inactive;

- Information when using the filter should be displayed instantly, without reloading the page, but when loading information, the filter should remain active;

- Filters must have a button to clear all, which removes all the checkmarks installed in the filters;

- We minimize the handwriting input to the filter - in almost all cases, you can make a convenient choice from the suggested values, for the rest there is a search line. The exception may be filters: cities, countries, streets.

Search Engine Scenarios

After entering a search query, the system operates in one of the proposed scenarios:

1 result
Go to the page, excluding the page of search results (implemented in Wikipedia)

More than 1 result without modifications
Transition to standard search results

More than 1 result with query modification
Transition to standard search results. Above the search information is displayed that the search query has been changed. It is necessary to display this, because the system may not correctly understand the user, we often come across this when searching in Yandex, Google.

No search results
The action is recorded in the logs, the user is displayed information on how to change the search query.

All criteria for searching the site solve two main problems: reducing the time for searching information; Improved readability of search results. If you follow these recommendations, then your site will be one step closer to increasing conversion.