Search Patterns

I'm working on a new book (and talk) about the future of search, and I've created a seed collection of patterns and examples to support my research.

Search Patterns

Please add tags, notes, and comments, and suggest new examples. Over time, I hope to include patterns that illustrate user behavior and the information architecture of search. I'll be blogging about search patterns as the collection and my ideas evolve. If you have comments or suggestions, please let me know.

Strange Connections

If you enjoy great wine, delicious food, and talking about faceted search, FIND'08 is the place for you. I visited Torino a few years ago and loved it!

Alison Head is leading a new research initiative called Project Information Literacy. I've agreed to serve as an advisor. It's an important and timely topic!

February 4, 2008 (12:47 PM) |
John McGuire (February 5, 2008)

Peter,
Have you looked at Dell.com's site search?
http://search.dell.com/results.aspx?s=gen&c=us&l=en&cs=&k=support&cat=all

They have features that could fit into several example categories.

Peter Morville (February 5, 2008)

That's a great suggestion. I'll add Dell later this week. Thanks John!

Reynder Bruyns (February 7, 2008)

A great reference post. I bookmarked it for my designers and SEO team. It almost becomes art when you collect it like this.

Rob Fay (February 7, 2008)

I needed to go to Apple's site today. Usually I do not need to use the site's search but was pleasantly surprised that it offers search behavior that mimicks its OS. This is quite interesting because these "suggest" capabilities likely aid the "search and revise" behavior of traditional search/search results patterns. I posted a screen capture on my blog: http://www.robfay.com/2008/02/07/apple-home-page-search/

Peter Morville (February 7, 2008)

Thanks Rob! I'll definitely add that to my collection of auto-suggest examples.

nl (February 14, 2008)

http://www.scootle.edu.au/ec/search?q=%22Immigration%22
is a good example of rich metadata search and display.

In particular note the related topics (lhs), and the other views of the results: Timeline view: http://www.scootle.edu.au/ec/search?q=%22Immigration%22&topic=&start=0&sort=relevance&v=time&field=title&field=keyword.text&field=description&field=id&field=topics.all.text&contenttype=all&contenttype=%22Interactive%20resource%22&contenttype=%22Collection%22&contenttype=%22Image%22&contenttype=%22Moving%20image%22&contenttype=%22Sound%22&userlevel=all&userlevel=(0%20OR%201%20OR%202)&userlevel=(3%20OR%204)&userlevel=(5%20OR%206)&userlevel=(7%20OR%208)&userlevel=(9%20OR%2010)&userlevel=(11%20OR%2012)&kc=any&lom=true&scot=true&follow=true&topiccounts=true&rows=20&branding=scootle#resulttab

Map View: http://www.scootle.edu.au/ec/search?q=%22Immigration%22&topic=&start=0&sort=relevance&v=map&field=title&field=keyword.text&field=description&field=id&field=topics.all.text&contenttype=all&contenttype=%22Interactive%20resource%22&contenttype=%22Collection%22&contenttype=%22Image%22&contenttype=%22Moving%20image%22&contenttype=%22Sound%22&userlevel=all&userlevel=(0%20OR%201%20OR%202)&userlevel=(3%20OR%204)&userlevel=(5%20OR%206)&userlevel=(7%20OR%208)&userlevel=(9%20OR%2010)&userlevel=(11%20OR%2012)&kc=any&lom=true&scot=true&follow=true&topiccounts=true&rows=20&branding=scootle#resulttab

Edward Vielmetti (April 21, 2008)

Peter -

I've noticed something to complement this, namely print advertising which tells you what to search for.

Pontiac had a campaign w/Google that was as simple as the word Pontiac in a Google search box on a billboard.

Honda has a campaign w/Yahoo which includes the phrase "shop honda" in a Yahoo-branded search box on television.

These are said to be "big in japan" (I am sure there is a link to that, but I'm lazy now) and in cases where your SEO is good but your domain name is not.