Abstract: Create intuitive, search powered dialogs by focusing on three core aspects: Disambiguation, Actionable results & Search management.

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Intuitive dialogs powered by search
A 30 minutes introduction to Search user experience (UX)
Abstract: Create intuitive, search powered dialogs by focusing on three core aspects:
Disambiguation, Actionable results & Search management.
Purpose: To provide an introduction to UX aspects of search services.
Intended audience: Team members in ongoing & potential projects.
Bjørn Tennøe, Senior consultant search UX
© 2008 FAST Global Services

2. 1. Disambiguation
Today’s UX topic:
Intuitive dialogs powered by search nokia
nokia phones
nokia n73
nokia 5310
Intuitive dialogs powered by search: nokia.com
nokia india
Disambiguation
1.
Actionable results
2.
Search management
3. 2. Actionable results
Popular UX topics out of scope:
Recommendations
4.
Web 2.0 influencing search
5.
 Buy now  Buy now
Public vs. intranet searches
6. Sunshine cleaning Local Color
19:00 18:50
Layout & usability tactics
7.
3. Search management
Follow up seminar available
3

3. Summary:
Align to the user perspective with personalized search
Your roots are in business Don’t reflect its structure
& technology to your customers
Create value with relevant, actionable search
© Bjørn Tennøe 2005
4

4. Next Gen UX powered by search

5. Towards natural language and intuitive use
From remotes and handhelds,
via computer programs to web services,
there is a multi-decade trend towards
more intuitive user experiences.
Analogy from handheld devices
1980’s 2010’s
Button mania Soft keys, Touch, wands, Vocal dialogs &
reduction more reduction gestures

6. Microsoft’s bet:
Search is the new paradigm for man machine interaction
Generations of man / machine interaction:
i. Command line ~ 1970
ii. Icon driven ~ 1985
iii. Search ~ 2000
Using natural language, search redefines how
people interact with computers.
Following the command line and the icon driven interfaces,
search powers the third generation of man-machine interaction.
7

7. Without personalized search: Information overload

 
 X Search
http://lasvegas.litware.com/ Las Vegas
Litware Las Vegas Illustrated: Wireframe
Welcome Sarah  Friday December 12 2008
Your profile  Logout  Help  Contact us
Search showing a conscierge service
not relying on personalization.
The complexity is undesirable
12:00 16:00 20:00 24:
for the selected user group.
Weather
Gonzo: The Life and Work World of Vaudeville
Tor 27. nov kl 2200
of Hunter S. Thompson
Parkteatret Scene
Tor 27. nov kl 1300
Av Best of Burlesque
Filmens Hus
8

8. A simple & targeted experience with personalized search

 
 X Search
http://lasvegas.litware.com/ Las Vegas
Litware Las Vegas Illustrated: Wireframe of a
Welcome Sarah  Friday December 12 2008
Your profile  Logout  Help  Contact us
Search search & recommendations
powered conscierge service.
14°C
Sarah, our top recommendations to you:
Compared to the previous
Current: Sunny
Wind: E at 0 km/h
slide, note the simplification,
Pecha Kucha Night Vol. 8 – in design & architecture
19:30 Humidity: 65%
which is desirable for the
14 presenters are allowed a slideshow of 20 images, each shown
for 20 seconds. This results in a total presentation time of 6
selected user group.
minutes 40 seconds on a stage before the next presenter is up.
With DJ & live gigs.
David Bowie in Las Vegas Contest
>>
You could win a trip for 2 to see David Bowie in Las Vegas! A Reality Tour is David
Bowie's first world tour in nearly a decade. Sony’s Musiclub is proud to offer you a
chance to ...
columbiarecords.com/​davidbowie/​musiclub
Power Gym with Mike Nash – in fitness & the Mirage
19:30
Lets’s do a late night work out! You bring your calories and Mike
brings the best of 80s & 90s workout music to this high-octane
session!
>> Sunshine Cleaning news & trivia
Amy Adams Recounts Her 'Ten Best Days'
It's nervous-making time at Sundance
‘Enchanted' star picked for Palm Springs International...
9

9. Federated recommendations with rich data & presentation

 
 X Search
http://lasvegas.litware.com/ Las Vegas
Litware Las Vegas Illustrated: Wireframe of a
Welcome Sarah  Friday December 12 2008
Your profile  Logout  Help  Contact us
Search search & recommendations
powered conscierge service.
14°C
Sarah, our top recommendations to you:
Compared to the previous
Current: Sunny
Wind: E at 0 km/h
slide these recommendations
Add
Zowie Bowie – in show & pop
21:30 Humidity: 65%
are presented in a more
The glitzy, glamorous duo and their high voltage
 Your activities:
band will set the Rocks Lounge on fire with their actionable manner, while still
15:00 – Enterprise search
scintillating, sexy sound.
keeping the interface as
At Red Rock Casino & Hotel – skramsta, dagne & 16:00 – Monetization de…
simple as possible.
joj are going – 13 comments
19:00 – Sunshine Cleaning
 (26 ratings)
 Current location (Change):
767 5th Ave, Las Vegas
Movies at Contoso Theater, Las Vegas
Ca 19 A
You
M
 Map for Contoso Theater,
 Buy now  Buy now  Buy now  Buy now 5th Av 89th St, Las Vegas
Sunshine cleaning Local Color I’ve loved you fo... Local color Enlarge map 
A
19:00 18:50 19:15 19:00
Las Vegas Restaurants with free tables
21:00
Olive Garden Italian TAO Restaurant La Mia Donna Italian
Restaurant Restaurant
M
  
Book Book Book
24 reviews, directions, 214 reviews, directions, 17 reviews, directions, You 10
menu, and more » menu, and more » menu, and more »

10. 1. Disambiguation
2. Actionable results
3. Search management

11. Search disambiguation:
From vague question to clear answer
Paris Search
The capital or Texan town or A celebrity
1. Do you mean...
Term disambiguation
Query suggestion
Facts or Hotels or News
2. We have several kinds
of results, including...
Source filtering
3. What are your Navigators Result 1 or Result 2
hotel preferences?
Vacant
Faceted navigation
Document
Actionable results
12

12. Stage 1: Initial formulation
Query completion
nokia
nokia phones
nokia n73
nokia pc suite
nokia 5310
nokia.com
nokia n82
nokia e51
nokia 5610
nokia india
nokia 6120
Query completion facilitates disambiguation by helping the user express a more refined query.
13

13. Stage 1: Initial formulation
Did you mean
 Misspelled query
 Did you mean
 Example results
 Documents with
misspelling
 Variation
14

14. Stage 2: Intent discovery – layout A
Sources displayed separately
• Different types of entities (news
Primary Secondary
articles, images, video, wiki source sources
entries etc.) are shown in discrete
regions of the page.
• This principle can be valuable if
there is a finite and well defined
set of entity types.
Secondary
sources
Tertiary
source
15

15. Stage 2: Intent discovery – layout B
Results split into categories
• Categories may reflect
overall information
architecture.
Category A Category i
• Splitting into categories is
valuable if the categories
are highly relevant to the
user in the current context. Category ii
All content must be
structured into Category B
categories/sources.
Category iii
• This layout principle may
work better for retail
services (e.g. Lefdal) than
for portals & information
self service (e.g. Category C
Ireland.com).
16

16. Stage 2: Intent discovery – layout C
Category tip results Source
navigator 
• Exemplified category results guide users Category
to the desired category (result type). In
(local) 
this respect they can replace filters
(navigators).
• Not all results have to belong to
Category
categories. See grayed out examples to
(news) 
the left.
• Within a category, composite results can
be used for sub-categorization. E.g. for
online stores, composite results can give
main product lines prominent placement
but allow accessories visibility.
• Use when: There are good chances that
users are interested in a known category
or one result type is too dominating.
• This principle allows for a flexible and
partially unstructured data set with a
wide variety of entity types. It does not
have to adhere to a specific information
architecture.
Category
(video) 
17

17. Stage 3: Known intent, source with uniform data
Multi-dimensional Navigators
• a.k.a. filters, drilldown, etc
• Navigators augment the traditional search
result by adding explicit filtering options.
• FAST provides navigators out of the box.
• Add metadata to allow for customer centric
drilldown
• Retail service eToys adds Age, Price & Gender
to allow for customer centric drilldown, e.g.
supporting gift shopping.
Example from non ESP site 18

18. 1. Disambiguation
2. Actionable results
3. Search management

19. Actionable results:
A better match between intent and content
From:
To:
Ca 19:00 – Movies at Contoso Theater, Las Vegas
Identify
 Buy now  Buy now  Buy now  Buy now Act
Sunshine cleaning Local Color I’ve loved you fo... Local color
19:00 18:50 19:15 19:00

20. Actionable results:
Breaking out of the document paradigm
”autumn” ”aapl”
”weather ny” ”moby”
Terminology
• Microsoft Live Answers
• Google OneBox
• Yahoo! Shortcut
• Also known as Composite results,
Blended results & Universal search.
21

21. Actionable results:
Use structured data
22

22. Actionable results:
Direct answers
”relevancy”
”adriana miguel ny”
”time in canberra”
”paris hilton height”
23

23. Actionable results:
Queries with specialized formats
”n199ua”
”patent 7158961”
”25$ in €”
24

24. Interactive, actionable results
”madrid to oslo” ”jobs in california”
”departed” ”4 South Moger Avenue, Mount Kisco, NY 1054”
25

25. Technical relevancy: <?xml version=quot;1.0quot; encoding=quot;utf-8quot; ?>
<QUERYTRANSFORM NAME=quot;FastQT_Lemmatizerquot; ACTION=quot;Modified the
R = Recall × Precision queryquot; QUERY=quot;steffenquot; CUSTOM=quot;Modified FQL treequot;
MESSAGE=quot;Term rerouted (lemmatization by document expansion)quot;
User’s definition:
R = Recall × Precision × Action
Visual refinement
Category tip
Direct answer
Interactive result
26

26. 1. Disambiguation
2. Actionable results
3. Search management

27. The prime minister not in the web results?
(not a FAST index)
28

28. Search management is key to user loyalty
Powerful visions & rich specifications lose their value
if the organization isn’t ready to operate its search
through diligent search management.
29

29. Manual result, created On Demand in the front end
Why? Because 80% of Enterprise knowledge is undocumented
Vacation calendar: Improve results
Still haven’t found what you’re looking for?
Promote result – find the document you are looking for and
promote it
Create result – Create a quick answer or link to this query
Vacation Calendar: Define top result
Query + Best link title. Example: Vacation Calendar – Ame… 
Title:
Text: 
Generate from best link. Example: Vacation calendar for…
Click to change
Best link: 
1. Create result The link whose contact person is closest to user
 Hide other links
Link 1: Americas Financial Services Beth Duggan Edit Delete 
Link 2: AMS Arun Selvaraj Edit Delete 
Link 3: Core Team Martha Eike Edit Delete 
Link 4: Global Services Oslo Nina Trettenes Edit Delete 
Add link – Add abbreviation – Add synonym Save
Vacation Calendar
Select your group's vacation calendar below.
• + Add resource 2. Save result
• Americas Financial Services –  Beth Duggan
• AMS –  Arun Selvaraj
• Core Team –  Martha Eike
• Global Services Oslo –  Nina Trettenes
Edit this result

30. Use search logs during specification
1. Research user needs
During requirements gathering, use query logs to:
• Categorize queries from the users’ perspective.
• Assess how many searches are of an ambiguous nature.
Query log - Basis for query categorization Categories identified
from query logs
Rank Top 6 queries Percent Category Acronym/Explana. Best bet Categories
1 time card 4,53 % HR & Organization HR & Organization
2 travel 2,45 % Ambiguous Tools & Services
3 eUniversity 2,20 % Tools & services E-learning + definition Employees & People
4 etravel 2,00 % Tools & services Products
5 inside track 1,83 % HR & Organization KM app + definition Clients & Companies
6 blackberry 1,76 % Ambiguous Professional terms
7 commuter 1,59 % HR & Organization Travel tool + definition Ambiguous
 search center
8 store 1,52 % Products Unknown
9 expense 1,46 % Tools & services Reimbursement Malformed query
 search center
10 acme 45 1,35 % Products
11 jira 1,27 % Tools & services Bugtracking + definition
12 security 1,10 % Ambiguous
13 stack metrix 0,98 % Unknown
14 scenario 0,97 % Ambiguous
15 thunder 0,96 % Tools & services Citrix based app
31

31. Use search logs during specification
B. Research feature potential
1. Retrieve search logs & categorize popular 1 2 3&4 6
queries. Identify typical queries from each
category.
2. Assess customers’ intent for these queries.
3. After understanding intent, identify the ideal
results without trying out the search.
4. Then perform the search and compare ideal
vs actual results. Outcome: Assessment of
performance (quality of template and results)
for each query according to intent.
5. Estimate quality of live service or specification
(e.g. wireframes).
6. Review if/how refinement concepts will
contribute to the result quality.
• Example Excel sheet appended
• Preferably, points 2 & 3 can be performed by
actual users.
32

32. Conclusion

33. 1. Disambiguation
Conclusion:
Intuitive dialogs powered by search nokia
nokia phones
nokia n73
In the multi-decade trend nokia 5310
nokia.com
towards more intuitive
nokia india
user experiences,
Search powers the third
2. Actionable results
generation of man-machine
interaction.
Three drivers for intuitive
dialogs powered by search are:
 Buy now  Buy now
1. Disambiguation Sunshine cleaning Local Color
19:00 18:50
2. Actionable results
3. Search management
3. Search management
35

34. More information available on demand
Popular, recently updated topics
in search user experience:
• FAST Recommendations
• Web 2.0 influencing search
• Public vs. intranet searches
• Layout & usability tactics
36

35. The User Experience consultancy in FAST Global Services
• We help clients
create great User Experiences.
• The value:
1. Improved service quality.
2. Decreased process risk.
• Deliverables include:
• Interaction design
19:00
For entire services or specifically (first show)
features powered by search
• Scoping and requirements gathering
• Expert review
• UX best practices
• Workshops & seminars 21:00
• For information, please contact
Bjørn Tennøe – bjorn.tennoe@fast.no
37
Illustrated: UX specification for concierge service

36. FAST search consultancy contact points
Search User Experience
• Bjørn Tennøe
bjorn.tennoe@fast.no
+47 480 111 92
Search Business Consulting (SBC)
• Define objectives & direction
• Jan Skjøy
jan.skjoy@fast.no
Business Integration Services (BIS)
• Define the right solution
• Stein Jacobsen
stein.jacobsen@fast.no
38

37. Thank you
Bjørn Tennøe
Senior consultant search UX
FAST Global Services
Mobile +47 48 01 11 92
bjorn.tennoe@fast.no
a Microsoft Subsidiary
www.fastsearch.com