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Risks of Riding

Last summer, I bought a mountain bike. Since then, I've had a great time rediscovering the joys of cycling on trails and roads. I even participated in my first triathlon. Cycling is a great way to stay in shape, or so I thought.

Then, two weeks ago, I had an accident. While riding down a hill on the Poto, my front wheel hit a stump and stopped dead. My bike and I did a complete forward flip. I landed on my back and managed to bruise a few ribs. The accident really shook me up, and it still hurts to breath deep.

Then, yesterday, while riding downtown, I got hit by a car (driven by a distracted Ann Arbor Art Fair artist). I escaped with only a scratch and a bruise, but my bike's front wheel got mashed.

So, now I'm wondering whether the long term dangers of riding a bike outweigh the health benefits. Don't get me wrong. I'll keep riding because I'm stubborn and it's fun. But I'm no longer convinced it's good for me. If you can point to any good data on the subject, I'd appreciate it. Thanks!

Strange Connections

If you have this Findability Study, ~~please send me a copy~~. It's free, but their registration system is broken. AIIM should read their own study, if they can find it!

Expanding Results

There was a good thread on the IAI Members List recently about expanding results during faceted search. For those not on the list, here are a few highlights:

Q. I'm restructuring the faceted search sidebar on an e-commerce search results page. What's your opinion about the user being able to expand results within a given search term, as well as narrow them?

A1. I do think it's worth enabling users to expand as well as narrow. NCSU's stacking breadcrumbs are an excellent way to show context and support relaxing one or more criteria. When I'm using Amazon, I often begin with a query (e.g., hitch rack), then navigate the category structure (Sports & Outdoors > Car Sports Racks > Bike Racks), and then wish I could remove my original query term (so I can see all items in the category, not just hitch racks), but with Amazon, I can't do that easily.

A2. In some usability studies we've done (at NCSU Libraries) we found that without prior training, a small percentage of users take advantage of this de-selection functionality. Most folks seem to ignore it. For those that "get it" it can be quite a handy tool for managing a large result set as it allows the user to expand and contract with minimal interaction...The larger the catalog, the more I think facet management tools (like de-selection buttons) add value.

For more, here's the thread. Not a member? Time to sign up!

Strange Connections

I'm now an official UX Pioneer. To learn how my parents' laughter drove me into a career in information architecture, read my story.

Tim Spalding, founder of LibraryThing, intends to replace the Dewey Decimal System with the Open Shelves Classification. Go Tim!

Christina Wodtke: A Quick Word

I talked with Christina Wodtke about Search Patterns. Christina moves fast and wears many hats including Principal Product Manager at LinkedIn, Founder of Cucina Media, Publisher of Boxes & Arrows, and author of Blueprints for the Web. Plus, she co-founded the IA Institute and led the ux design group at Yahoo! responsible for the revival of search and the reinvention of shopping.

Christina believes search is perfect for patterns because behavior is fairly stable and predictable. As she noted in Long Tails and Short Queries, the patterns observed by Amanda Spink in 1997 haven't changed much. For instance, most web queries are still short, 2 to 3 terms, and include little refinement.

In that context, query disambiguation is incredibly hard, and the challenge can be summed up as: "one more word!" How do we entice users to share just a little more about their intent? Clearly Search Assist is an attempt to do just that. Christina also noted that "size matters!" Approaches that work for web search may not work for site search, and vice versa. For instance, Best Bets won't scale for web search (though Wikipedia and Mahalo sorta aim to fill that gap).

Finally, Christina was generous enough to share some unpublished writing she's done on the topic of search. Here are a few of my favorite excerpts:

Fast and ugly is better than slow and pretty.

Scan time is as important as load time.

If you want to see how hummingbirds fly, you'll have a hard time. They move so fast they become a blur. But, if you ask them to slow down, they can't stay aloft, and you won't learn anything...search is so fast, that if the user is forced to think [e.g., in a usability test], they slow down too much and behave unnaturally.

With search, the physical actions are few: look, type, click. What you really want to know is hidden, even from the person searching.

Thanks Christina, for slowing down for moment, to share your search insights!

Clarify and Refine

At Endeca Discover I had an great conversation with Daniel Tunkelang about his idea that, with respect to guided navigation, we should distinguish between clarify and refine. First, we must clarify the meaning or context. Are we in the right ballpark regarding the searcher's intent? Clarify is all about disambiguation.

| View | Upload your own

Then, we're ready to refine or narrow. Exactly what type of widget do you want? Refine is about increasing specificity. In Is Search Broken? Daniel hints at how we might cut through facets to clarify by leveraging guided summarization.

It's a subtle distinction, but from a designer's perspective, I think it's a valuable way to frame the search process. Clarify, then refine. What do you think?

Made to Stick

Made to Stick is the best non-fiction book I've read in a long time. It's jam-packed with interesting facts, useful ideas, and inspiring stories.

Here are a just a few of my favorites:

Becoming an expert in something means that we become more and more fascinated by nuance and complexity. That's when the Curse of Knowledge kicks in, and we start to forget what it's like not to know what we know. (p.46)

In Hollywood, people use core ideas called "high-concept pitches." You've probably heard some of them. Speed was "Die Hard on a bus." (p.58)

Proverbs are the Holy Grail of simplicity. Coming up with a short, compact phrase is easy. Anybody can do it. On the other hand, coming up with a profound compact phrase is incredibly difficult..."finding the core," and expressing it in the form of a compact idea, can be enduringly powerful. (p.62)

The most basic way to get someone's attention is this: Break a pattern. (p.64)

When our guessing machines fail, surprise grabs our attention so that we can repair them for the future...Unexpected ideas are more likely to stick because surprise makes us pay attention and think. (p.68)

One important implication of the gap theory is that we need to open gaps before we close them. Our tendency is to tell people the facts. First, though, they must realize that they need these facts. (p.85)

This realization - that empathy emerges from the particular rather than the pattern - brings us back full circle to the Mother Teresa quote..."If I look at the mass, I will never act. If I look at the one, I will." (p.203)

How can we make people care about our ideas? We get them to take off their Analytical Hats. We create empathy for specific individuals. We show how our ideas are associated with things that people already care about. We appeal to their self-interest, but we also appeal to their identities - not only to the people they are right now but also to the people they would like to be. (p.203)

The story's power, then, is twofold: It provides simulation (knowledge about how to act) and inspiration (motivation to act). Note that both benefits, simulation and inspiration, are geared towards generating action. (p.206)

A review of thirty-five studies featuring 3,214 participants showed that mental practice alone - sitting quietly, without moving, and picturing yourself performing a task successfully from start to finish - improves performance significantly...Overall, mental practice alone produced about two thirds of the benefits of actual physical practice. (p.213)

Stories are like flight simulators for the brain. (p.213)

Stories have the amazing dual power to simulate and to inspire. And most of the time we don't even have to use much creativity to harness these powers - we just need to be ready to spot the good ones that life generates every day. (p.237)

You can learn more at madetostick.com. This is a must-read for teachers, parents, saints, and anyone who cares about the enduring impact of their ideas.

Luke Wroblewski: Interview

I talked with Luke Wroblewski about Search Patterns. Luke is Senior Principal of Product Ideation & Design at Yahoo!, Principal of LukeW Interface Designs, and the author of Web Form Design, a new book from Rosenfeld Media.

Our conversation began with a look at Search Monkey and Glue Pages. Search Monkey is an open platform that allows developers to enhance search results with rich media and structured data. The search gallery shows available enhancements such as Epicurious and Last.fm. Search Monkey is an important step towards the vision of search as a platform.

Glue Pages are specialized, enhanced, federated search result pages for select queries such as apple, banana, coffee, etc. This flexible, modular platform may fold into Yahoo's open strategy so developers can create custom results.

Luke went on to highlight a few behavior and design patterns:

Query Refinement. Most users won't refine pre-query. They don't know the size and range of the index. But they will refine post-query, and it provides tremendous value.
Search Assistance. Studies show a correlation between the number of words in the query and satisfaction with results. Search Assist improves query richness. Tips (e.g., did you mean?) improve confidence and suggestions (e.g., related concepts) can shift users into exploratory mode.
Layout. For query refinement tools, we found the right rail is the least discoverable. The top is the most obvious, but suggestions can get in the way of results. That's why search assist is on top but hidden by default. Other examples include Local and Shopping.
Vertical Search. In verticals such as News and Games, we've found that people are fine with two search boxes, one for the vertical and one for web search. In each vertical, we're selectively exposing structured metadata (e.g., pricing in Autos) to support the decision making process.

In the future, Luke sees deeper integration of applications into results. The query is an expression of intent. Sometimes users simply want to find information, but often they want to complete a task or achieve a goal. For instance, if you're searching for indiana jones, you may want to watch the trailer, find a nearby theater, invite friends, and buy tickets. We can get them closer to the action.

For inspiration, Luke keeps an eye on interesting startups, but feels it's critical to also look outside of search at the broader trends on the Web. At present, rich content is drawing users' attention, the barrier of entry to application development is falling, and social tools are producing mountains of potentially valuable social data. So, according to Luke, we can expect to find some interesting results in the future of search.

Note: If you'd like a copy of Web Form Design, use this discount code (FINDABILITY) to save 10% off direct purchases from Rosenfeld Media.

Tom Chi: Interview

I talked with Tom Chi about Search Patterns. As senior director of user experience at Yahoo!, Tom led last year's major redesign of Yahoo! Search which featured the launch of Search Assist.

Search Assist has two components. First, auto-complete identifies when users need search suggestions by measuring typing speed and responding to hesitations. This feature has dramatically reduced the number of misspelled queries. Second, auto-suggest identifies related concepts, and helps users to move forward (refine), backward (expand), and sideways (related).

Tom explained that this innovation resulted from careful analysis of user behavior and psychology. Their studies showed searchers hadn't become more sophisticated over the past five years, and that users often blamed themselves for poor results. By studying the ways users fail, Tom's team saw an opportunity to help users make the query smarter, one simple step at a time.

This was clearly a good move. Since launching Search Assist, Yahoo! has seen significant improvements in user satisfaction, and a 61% increase in successful task completion. And, in a recent Keynote Benchmark study, Yahoo! took first place in the search assistance category.

Tom noted that thinking creatively about how you define the problem is essential to innovation. There are conspicuous opportunities (e.g., social, multimedia, ubiquitous access), but we must also seek the less obvious possibilities (e.g., making search invisible).

He finds inspiration in such works as Edward O. Wilson's The Diversity of Life. As Tom noted "any system, as it becomes more complex, approximates a biological system." That's an intriguing perspective for someone tasked with inventing the future of search. Good luck Tom!