Search page wording and defaults
mfin
Posts: 6,729
I noticed that the wording on the search page under your search phrase is confusing.
There are 2 options:
Search for any terms or use query as entered
Search for all items
...loads of people post without searching for previous dicsussions, I'd bet £1million that this is because firstly it it the former of these two options that is the default option and that when they have searched, it seems to come back with nothing they are looking for.
Most times using the former option is not what people assume that is going to be the norm PLUS the two descriptions do no favours to making it easy to explain.
How about making 'Search for all items' the default one first of all because people don't read these things and select them and thats the behaviour most people will expect' ...you could reword it to 'search for results containing phrase (or all words entered)'. The second option can be renamed 'search for results containing any of the words (or query as entered').
If you want the wording a tiny bit shorter try 'Show results....' instead of 'Search for results....'.
I think this would be a massive improvement for 'joe untechnical regular bloggs' users that would take next to no time to implement (...it took me ages to spot and understand and it shouldnt have.)
PS. I know the default might be set to be current one to avoid 'null results' but I bet that the results make 95% of people think 'that search is terrible, its come back with a load of rubbish'.
Hope that's some help coming from someone who enjoys the site.
There are 2 options:
Search for any terms or use query as entered
Search for all items
...loads of people post without searching for previous dicsussions, I'd bet £1million that this is because firstly it it the former of these two options that is the default option and that when they have searched, it seems to come back with nothing they are looking for.
Most times using the former option is not what people assume that is going to be the norm PLUS the two descriptions do no favours to making it easy to explain.
How about making 'Search for all items' the default one first of all because people don't read these things and select them and thats the behaviour most people will expect' ...you could reword it to 'search for results containing phrase (or all words entered)'. The second option can be renamed 'search for results containing any of the words (or query as entered').
If you want the wording a tiny bit shorter try 'Show results....' instead of 'Search for results....'.
I think this would be a massive improvement for 'joe untechnical regular bloggs' users that would take next to no time to implement (...it took me ages to spot and understand and it shouldnt have.)
PS. I know the default might be set to be current one to avoid 'null results' but I bet that the results make 95% of people think 'that search is terrible, its come back with a load of rubbish'.
Hope that's some help coming from someone who enjoys the site.
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