IA Summit 09 - User Interfaces with Metasearch Capabilities

User Interface Issues with Metasearch

IA SummitMarch 21, 2009

Dana Douglas, Dick Horst, Cory Lebson / User Interface Issues with Metasearch / IA Summit 2009

What is metasearch?

AKA “federated search”

“…simultaneous search of multiple online databases or web resources…” (Wikipedia)

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Recent Studies

2 government agencies

Library of Congress (LOC)Various historical databases, the LOC website, and the LOC

card catalog

National Institutes of Health Library (NIHL)

Various medical research databases

1 professional organization

American Chemical Society (ACS)Various chemistry journals, articles, and the ACS website

Dana Douglas, Dick Horst, Cory Lebson / User Interface Issues with Metasearch / IA Summit 2009 3

MethodologiesSimilarities:

One-on-one usability test

User-defined and scenario-based tasks

Differences:LOC – 20 participants, general public, prototype

NIHL – 14 participants, NIH employees & contractors, 3 metasearch interfaces – 1 prototype and 2 functional sites

ACS – 10 participants, chemistry professionals, functional site


Library of Congress



NIH Library Site 1

NIH Library Site 2 (Science.gov)


NIH Library Site 3 (Scitopia.org)


American Chemical Society


Results

Some metasearch-specific results and some general search interface results

Some commonalities and some differences


Metasearch takes time


Waiting for a complete display of results is better than a quick response that displays only a partial set of results.

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-But be sure to justify to the user why it is taking a long time.

Use a progress indicator to show the user that a search is still ongoing.

Advanced Search within metasearch

Advanced Search is an important and desirable feature. Especially for sophisticated searchers.

Technical limitations:Different metadata is used in each of the

different sources


Offer an Advanced Search, even if only for individual sources. Make sure entry fields are intuitive.

These entry fields are not intuitive.These entry fields are not intuitive.

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Do users care about the source of their results?

Users are more concerned with obtaining the answers that they need than the source of those answers (among the sources offered).

Exception: Some sophisticated searchers (e.g., frequent medical researchers at NIH) will want to choose what sources are included in the search.


Show users which sources will be searched by default and provide an option for them to modify the selection according to their preferences.

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Interacting with results

Users like to be able to interact with their search results.

Searching within the results

Removing or adding sources to the search

Applying filters to the results


Give users control by providing options to narrow or expand the results in various ways.

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Metasearch Filters


Bad

Good

How to offer faceted browsing of results

Functionality:

-Include Topic, Author, and Date filters for each set of results-Allow users to remove a filter once it is selected-Allow users to select from more than one category (i.e., topic and date)

Metasearch Filters (cont.)


Bad

Good

Use clear navigation icons and visually defined hierarchies in filters.

How to display:

-Show a clear hierarchy-Use consistent list icons at each level-Avoid use of ellipsis in topic labels-Avoid overuse of blue hyperlink text

General search interface findings

SEARCH TERMS

Users will:Use descriptive search terms (“books about” or a specific journal name)

Misspell search terms

Use Boolean logic


Metasearch features should support common user inputs such as descriptive words and Boolean logic.

General search interface findings

SEARCH TERMS

Users want (and expect):A feature to check their spelling

A feature to support Boolean logic


If Google does it, users expect it from you, too.

General search interface findingsRESULTS DISPLAY

Users will:Assume that the “featured links” at the top of results list are advertisements and will skip over them

Skim results and skip items that don’t immediately look relevant


Users want:Text extracts included for every result

Highlighted keywords

Results ranked by relevancy

Where differences occur

UNSOPHISTICATED SEARCHERS VS. SOPHISTICATED SEARCHERS

Unsophisticated searchers care about:

Quickly locating useful results

Sophisticated searchers care about:

What sources are being searched

Advanced Search options (because they’re used to using them)


Best practices for any search

-Incorporate spell check and a thesaurus

-Support Boolean logic


-Include text extracts for all results

-Highlight keywords in titles and text extracts

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Best practices for metasearch

-Display a progress indicator as results are being populated

-Offer Advanced Search

-Clearly display hierarchy in filters

-Show sources that are being searched and allow users to be modify them


Consider the sophistication of your various audience groups when designing a search interface and as always, conduct user testing throughout the design process.

Future Research

Personalization (i.e., save search terms, save results, export results)

RSS feeds of new content related to a search

Geo-proximity as a sorting option

How to search multimedia databases

How long users are willing to wait for results

The best way to implement Advanced Search


Questions?


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Suite 138Silver Spring, MD 20903

301-431-0500www.userworks.com

IA Summit 09 - User Interfaces with Metasearch Capabilities

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