MySearch: Customized Search

A common complaint about FirstSearch search screens is that they are too complex. The same people who make these complaints ask for more functionality, often, functionality that is little used. In efforts to address this conflict, FirstSearch has developed three search screens (four, if you count the Home screen). In this document, I propose creating one search screen -- or more properly, one search form -- that is meant to satisfy all needs for all users. It is called MySearch, and is configured interactively by each user, with options for persistence across sessions. Users would be able to add search boxes, control the number of indexes shown, show features like index and thesaurus browsing, etc., and the next time the search screen is seen, it would be as the user left it.

Background

In creating different screens to meet the needs of different types of users, FirstSearch presents more than twice the number of options any user might use. In addition to cluttering up the screens, there is added development cost for user interface code and online help.

Advanced Search

The FirstSearch Advanced Search screen, especially for WorldCat, is an example of a full featured search screen meant to address almost any searcher's needs. The WorldCat Advanced Search screen features:

Although much effort have gone into the design of the search screen, it is at best imposing and at worst overwhelming to casual users. Based on usage statistics, more than half of the screen is used in less than 1% of searches. That does not include searches that did not happen because users were scared away.

WorldCat Advanced Search Screen

Expert Search

Compared to the WorldCat Advanced Search screen, the WorldCat Expert Search screen, which is seldom used, presents:

WorldCat Expert Search Screen

Basic Search

The WorldCat Basic Search screen hides most of the above and presents separate boxes for each of the following indexes: Keyword, Author, Title, ISBN, and Year. If the user interface language is anything other than English, a checkbox is shown to allow limiting to that language. Buttons leading to index-specific help are provided for each field, along the some format examples. When FirstSearch 5.0 was released, the Basic Search screen featured a single box with radio buttons for three indexes (Keyword, Title, Author). It was the default search screen, but FirstSearch administrators had the ability to change that default to Advanced or Expert Search.

Purposely missing from the Basic Search screen:

WorldCat Basic Search Screen

other Differences

There are other differences among the search screens:

Stats for May 2006 Basic Advanced Expert
Default Search Screen (Authos/Insts) 30751 (84%) / 20710 (86%) 5427 (15%) / 3411 (14%) 37 (0%) / 36 (0%)
Queries (among all search types) 1,019,204 (25.9%) 1,468,016 (27.3%) 54,317 (1.4%)
Zero-Hit Queries 228,843 (22.4%) 359,900 (24.5%) 16,998 (31.3%)
Help Files (WorldCat) * ? (3) 167 (9) 135 (8)

Introducing MySearch

Work To Do

  1. mechanism for organizing options
  2. mechanism for editing options (little boxes, menus, forms)
  3. mechanism for storing options (cookies vs LDAP)
  4. method to make some/most/all form changes local on the browser (currently using a trip to server for changes)
  5. can allow users to cusotmize which indexes appear in menus
  6. could limit langs to those in browser locale

Example MySearch Configurations

add one for known item, one for subject searching May searches 3940432 worldcat Title ti: 34.70 + 4.13 Keyword kw: 31.64 Author au: 19.56 + 1.71 + 0.93 Doctype dt= 20.52 ISBN nb: 8.66 OCLC# no: 5.17 Year yr: 6.09 Language la= 2.88 Material Type mt: 2.24 Subject su: 1.10 + 2.18 Publisher pb: 0.93 ISSN ns: 1.53 Library li: 1.06