Search vs. Filtering: Key Takeaways
The best search experiences involve some sort of filtering, and the best filtering experiences involve some sort of search.
Creating a good search experience is difficult because there’s no one way to do it best, but there are some general steps you can follow to get a good start:
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Low-hanging fruit: Some search best practices apply to every app. Make the search controls obvious, design the no-results page first and offer suggestions before, during, and after the search.
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Understand your product: Take a deep hard look at your inventory to figure out what the most important and unique features of your products are to you. Then think about how they help your users.
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Listen to your users: When it comes to the more nuanced interactions and filtering options your best bet is to test with real users. On average, around 80% of your app’s problems will be discovered by only five users. And if you can’t get direct input from your users, look at the data on how they’re behaving already (in your app, or in similar ones) and act accordingly.
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Be intentional: If you don’t need to use a search feature, don’t use it. Less is more here. Everything you add should be added because you know it’s necessary and not as an afterthought.
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Don’t make a mobile site: If your app is a companion to a website, the reality is that you won’t be able to fit everything you have on the website in the app. Strip the search functionality to the most important and necessary functions. You can always add more later.
Where to Go From Here?
Take a good, hard look at your app and see if some of the examples above could help your users have a better search experience. Are there any undesirable elements that some of the apps above share with your app? How could you change this?
If you want to learn more about designing for content discovery, here are some great resources I recommend:
If you’re interested in really understanding your user behavior, I recommend taking a look at Kishin Manglani’s article on Getting Started with Mobile Analytics.
And if you’re interested in improving the overall user experience of your app, I recommend reading a couple articles from the Nielson Norman group.
If you have any questions, comments or app experiences to share, please do so below!
