Practical Enhancements. Part 1: Auto Suggest

25 02 2009

Feb 25 | Ted Adriance

Surfing around the other day, researching a new Macbook, I realized that on each site I visited, I made use of their “auto-suggest” search functionality, an underrated, taken-for-granted tool. This little tool could make or break a deal when it comes down to the user experience.

Check out Amazon’s “Search Suggestions” tool. Began your quest for a new “mac”, but rather check out what Madonna’s up to? You’re in luck, as “Madonna” returns within your suggested results. While I might not purchase that new Macbook today, I might just break the bank for that $3.25 used copy of Madonna’s “You Can Dance“. Long story short… I made a purchase that was suggested to me, not the purchase I originally had in mind.

amazon

With the presentation of related (or non-related) suggestions, a user has the potential to make one less click towards the three-click rule to find their desired content. Presenting the most relevant information sooner increases the quality of the user experience and decreases the effort it takes to do so.

Looking for fancy?

Check out Apple’s design that presents product images and product details within their auto-suggest window.

mac

Looking for practical?

Suggest relevant content related to your user’s request. Searching for “Vermont Skiing”? Google suggests “Vermont Ski Packages”. Now take this same concept to your website: Does a user begin their search with “Lift Tickets”? Why not suggest “Specials”, “Discounts” or even current events within the returned suggestions?

google

Consider what gains there are to be had with the implement of an auto-suggest search on your site. Could the returned suggestions help users find their desired content that may otherwise be buried in a large list of search results? Could suggestions be “refined” to entice the user with other content from your site that they might not otherwise find?

It worked for me… I didn’t get that new Macbook, but wasn’t disappointed as I completed my Madonna collection.


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Categories : CSS & Frontside Production, Technical Development

Customization Matters

10 02 2009

Feb 10 | Eric Smith

With the rise of open source software came the commodization of application development. The move away from proprietary software solutions was something that I never would have predicted. But now it’s a given that somebody, somewhere has attacked the same problem you have, and in all likelihood has open-sourced her solution. One of the interesting bits about the availability of code is that a kind of referendum occurs on the various solutions. People vote with their downloads. And as solutions get tried and beat up on, standards start to emerge for general classes of problems. And as Ian Murdock — the creator of the Debian Linux distribution — has argued, it is standards that open the gates to the competitive arena where commodization begins.

But as any reader of any blog knows, such widely available solutions lead to mind-numbing sameness. The ubiquity of certain conventions on web sites has certainly improved User Interface design over the years — you know what to expect and how to get where you want to go without hunting. But the monotony of features may be of little help to an organization that understands the relationship with its audience and precisely how best to communicate with them. Typically these folks have a pretty good idea of how they would like to get across important information. And canned solutions often don’t do the trick.

So even though many bread-and-butter programming tasks have mercifully been taken care of by armies of open-source programmers, there is still the unique puzzler that a client sends your way because they know what they need. These problems can be fairly challenging, and tax even the most flexible software infrastructure, but such features are how a client will talk to their audience in a way that is uniquely their own.


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Categories : Application development, Technical Development