search vs browse

on Jacob Nielsen:

usability studies show that more than half of all users are search-dominant, about a fifth of the users are link-dominant, and the rest exhibit mixed behavior

epicurious: so much goodness

There are many things I like about Epicurious.com, ranging from the delicious recipes to the impressive UI. I’m still working on identifying all the interesting features I think work well, but here are a few.

1. They split their search paradigm into a simple keyword search, advanced search, and browse. All three of these are easy to use and straightforward.

2. The results page is elegant, yet offers a lot of information and tools.

3. Even though they could offer a ton of options to refine with, their left nav only shows one set of sort options, one set of filters, and a “search within results” keyword box. Advanced search is promoted, but not very visibly.

4. The listing display is easy to scan and informative. I like the little icons that communicate different attributes of a recipe such as “healthy”, “quick and easy”, “wine pairing”, etc.

There’s more to like, but this is all for today.

FaThumb: microsoft research and faceted search on mobile

Microsoft Research is working on faceted search for cell phones.

taptu – mobile/social search

Peter Morville posted some good screenshots of Taptu, a mobile social search app that seems pretty well designed. They even have a whitepaper on this stuff, but I haven’t read it yet.

starting over, two examples

kayak

trulia

ask.com search page – all sorts of interestingness

The ask.com search result page is split into two “frames”. The main content container (search results) scrolls, but the left navbar and top tabs stay constant. I haven’t come across this feature anywhere else, and I wonder how important it is to the user, but it’s an interesting idea. It is useful if you really want your users to use your navigation after they have reviewed a bunch of results.

In general, the ask.com results page feels very clean and concise.

search suggestions, snooth

Snooth has a “Pssst…. wanna see some samples?” link right underneath the search box:

When you click on it, it shows suggestions that you can scroll through:

guardian jobs – listing display options

- Interesting display of individual listings — condensed, succinct.

- You can switch to “descriptive” listing style (I like the wording of “compact” vs “descriptive”).

guardian news search left nav

The guardian.co.uk has a smooth and clean search interface. Their search is powered by endeca.