Solving bad IA using enterprise search (Reverse Advanced Search)
Since I started working with Apache Solr in Drupal, I’ve realized how much client money has been wasted making ill advised advanced searches. We’ve all gotten the requests for “advanced” searches and it makes any IA-god fearing developer cringe. For the 1% of users who use them, you blow tons of budget, and the result is often quite poor because the client doesn’t really know their data or their users that well.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with faceted search compare the following:
I did a search for WSXGA because I’m looking for a laptop with decent resolution on two sites.
vs.
(click to enlarge image in new window)
The New Egg search lets me filter, so I know that I’m looking for a laptop between $750 -> $1000, I’ll get 5 results. After that filter, I’ll know what’s available, and the # per manufacturer etc.
Contrast that with an advanced search form where I have to put in all my criteria, and hope I get a result. I might also miss certain results if my vocabulary is bad, or I don’t understand that the website says “high resolution” instead of WSXGA, so I don’t select it.
I think it’s obvious to anyone why faceted search is a good thing. In my next post, I’ll be exploring why is hasn’t gotten widespread adoption, particularly in the small business / NGO sector, and how I plan to help change that.
