[finders] Jason Blackwell: Interview

[finders at findability.org]

March 26, 2008: Jason Blackwell: Interview

http://www.findability.org/archives/000201.php

I talked with Jason Blackwell about Search Patterns. Jason, a user
experience specialist at IBM, has led an enterprise social search project
that uses bookmark and tag data from Dogear to improve search and social
networking.

The team wanted to keep the main intranet search results (official data)
front and center while offering social data as an extra feature. The initial
design adopted the Google model with filter tabs for each content type
(e.g., blogs, wikis, forums, news, people). But users didn't visit the tabs
very often.

The new design adopted the Ask model with a customizable sidebar (to the
right of results) that by default presents three preview results for each
content type. Click-throughs skyrocketed. A nice example of how seemingly
small design details can make a big difference. Other highlights (notes not
quotes) include:

* We review the top 300 queries (which account for 30-40% of all searches
each week) and manually adjust the Best Bets as necessary.
* Tags and bookmarks impact the ranking of the main search results.
* We may add personalization and narrow/broaden capabilities.

Jason noted that designers no longer own the search user experience. At IBM,
folks use Greasemonkey to add new sources to the sidebar. And, on the Web,
StumbleUpon injects social data into Google results. By providing APIs and
RSS feeds, we can open search to support further customization and
innovation.