Overview

We didn't tell users to use the site's search mechanism to find answers, but many of them did. About one-third of the people we tested usually tried a search as their initial strategy, and others resorted to it when they couldn't find an answer by following links.

Most of the sites we studied had built-in search engines to help users find information within the site. Edmund's, WebSaver, and Travelocity did not, and one user gave up on a task in Edmund's when he couldn't find a search facility.

Sometimes the search engine helped, but often it didn't. Users had two types of problems with on-site searches:

• They didn't understand the scope of the search.
• They had trouble interpreting the search results.

Unclear Search Areas

Users were often confused about what parts of a site the search engine would examine. They tended to assume that a search would cover the entire site and didn't always realize when it would search in just one particular area. Or, if there were obviously several different ways to search, users didn't know which one to try first.