{"id":769,"date":"2009-04-17T07:23:15","date_gmt":"2009-04-17T07:23:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.agconsult.com\/en\/search-is-no-place-to-get-creative\/"},"modified":"2009-04-17T07:23:15","modified_gmt":"2009-04-17T07:23:15","slug":"search-is-no-place-to-get-creative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.agconsult.com\/en\/usability-blog\/search-is-no-place-to-get-creative\/","title":{"rendered":"Search is no place to get creative"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Creative people are good at coming up with original ideas. Also when they’re working on a website. That’s perfectly fine of course, provided they don’t get too creative…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The screenshot below is from a webbuilder’s site. Apparently somebody thought the standard search feature was in desperate need of an update. The result? A search feature that is unusable for the average surfer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Screenshot 1<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Unusable<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

“Ah, a link to the search feature. Or is it?” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Screenshot 2<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Search<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

“Oops, it’s a faulty link… No, wait a minute… What’s that little white line doing there?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Screenshot 3<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Search<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

“You can type on the line. That’s unexpected. But wait a minute, where’s the ‘Search’ button? Hmm, I guess I’ll just press ‘Enter’?”  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Screenshot 4<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Search<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

“Yes, it is a real search feature. Hmm, quite complicated…”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did you get it?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Did you immediately catch on to how this search feature works?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you did: congratulations. You didn’t? Not to worry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I showed it during a usability workshop<\/a> to ten people, all professionally involved in the internet. None of them had a clue. None.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keep search simple<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A plain white type-in field of at least 25 characters long and a simple button that says ‘Search’ is something everybody recognizes and knows how to use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keep it simple, people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Creativity is a good thing. Getting overly creative when designing a search feature isn’t.
\nRead this short story about search in 4 screenshots<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-usability"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nSearch is no place to get creative | AGConsult<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Creativity is a good thing. Getting overly creative when designing a search feature isn't. Read our short story about search in 4 screenshots.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.agconsult.com\/en\/usability-blog\/search-is-no-place-to-get-creative\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Search is no place to get creative\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Creativity is a good thing. Getting overly creative when designing a search feature isn't. 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