There are fundamental reasons that search of publicly-available specific information works better than pre-built structure.
Setting up site navigation involves choices: - Which items to make visible and when - What to call the items Search cuts across both of these: - If the searcher gives priority to a lower-level category, the search will match when step-by-step navigation would hit a hiccup - If the searcher chooses a different name from the architect, the content may match anyway The times when search does not win are: - When privileges are required to make items visible, and the search engine isn't granted the same privileges as the user - When multiple distinct items are called by the same name This first factor explains why search within an e-mail archive is a killer app. The search engine in your e-mail has your privileges, so anything you can get e-mailed to yourself is searchable. If you are able to distinguish among the items in your e-mail, then they become findable too. Regarding serendipity, there are three phases to search: - Specifying criteria (and later broadening them based on actual or anticipated search results) - Narrowing the criteria (based on actual search results) - Selecting an item from among the search results Perhaps what you are looking for is there, but in a different way than you expect. Is there not serendipity even in filtering? That combined with idiosyncratic links within content can give us the appropriate surprises that we crave. Best wishes, Bruce Esrig On Wed, Feb 20, 2008 at 5:58 PM, stephanie . <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Sorry for joining in on this late but I'm wondering what you folks think > of > eliminating browsable navigation on Web sites all together and just > forcing > users to use a search interface to locate what they are looking for. > Songza > (http://www.songza.com) is an example of this that does not allow users to > browse, for example, a category such as Rock music. > > I've always been of the mindset that we should provide for different user > habits but if the majority of users are moving towards search only, then > perhaps my assumption should be re-evaluated. It makes me a bit sad to > think > that serendipity may be eventually lost. > > Any thoughts? > > > Stephanie Walker > Information Architect > Austin, TX, USA > ________________________________________________________________ > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe > List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines > List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help > > ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
