The Psychology of Search: Chapter Two
Posted on August 25th, 2005 in Usability | 11 Comments »
What Mamma Don’t Talk About
No one really understands search, or searching. Don’t be fooled! There is a poverty of understanding on this topic for many reasons, but the primary reasons are hubris and ignorance. Too many people are reluctant to admit they don’t understand search, and too many in turn are too weak to resist those that claim they do.
The fundamental nature of search is not well defined or known. Ask yourself, what is a search engine and what is it for? Searching? I think not.
Searching is:
- finding
- hunting
- seeking
- wondering
- exploring
- problem solving
- questioning
But it is also much more. Search is also a conversation. It is the talk that occurs between a database or index, and a human. It is not human-to-human conversation per se, but it is, nevertheless, a conversation. A dialog.
Consider, if you could just talk to someone who could answer all your questions, would that be better than search? Better still, wouldn’t it be great to be given all the answers ahead of time completely cutting out the need for search?
But wait, there’s more. Search is also a contract. Ask a judge about a contract and he will ask if there was a meeting of the minds. That, in essence, describes search success. Did your mind meet the mind of someone, and did you get what you wanted from that interaction? Did you close the deal or not?
(Kids, you won’t get this kind of thinking other places. Most folks are off talking technology and gee whiz when it comes to search. I hope you are starting to see the light, that search is a conversation and a contract. And more. It certainly is not just a bag o’ technology.)
Caveman Search, Oooga Booga
Before search engines there was searching. To forget this is foolhardy. The world hasn’t stopped and started on the basis of search. We’ve all been hunting and seeking and asking and finding answers for a long time.
Bottom line: Search is a conversation, or perhaps a negotiation between two parties (man or machine). Search engines technically represent a set of basic human activities, such as information seeking, discovery, and problem solving.
- – - -
Reference…
The Psychology of Search: Chapter One
- You don’t care much about the technology of search. You care about results.
- Search is an indication of failure, not success. If you had the answers, you wouldn’t need to search.
11 Responses
[...] The Psychology of Search: Chapter Two [...]
Your ordered list is similar to Broder’s taxonomy of web search:
http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=broder+%22web+search%22+taxonomy
Also see this FirstMonday article:
http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue5_2/choo/index.html
In Rappelz we meet, you had a lot of rappelz rupees, but I have no. perhaps because this, we meet. In any case, we knew each other. In our eyes the sea from the time, found love in the eyes of fate.
Even this pathetic pharmaceutical division, produced the drug have to give, make a paste of money, I would like to be a soldier diverted！As I will get more mabinogi gold and mabinogi money.
“Mabinogi” has very rich fighting skills, magic skills. The most characteristic is the monster will use the skills, and there are still certain skills of the passengers, adding players in the course of the fighting in the fun. You can buy cheap mabinogi you temporarily to ease the tension!
He often took me to train operation, and bought Ragnarok Online zeny, we could thought, he was often scolded pigs, when he said that, I would say: “I am the pig, why do you find a pig as your wife”, he ran here and said: “I like the pig”.
You said, you did not play Rupees very often, in fact we had the same support to the present, simply because the people and events around.
It was not seriously the end, no special met the same, and finally in the event of a legend inside the mature 30-year-old man to his gave me equipment and a lot of Rohan Online crone, I felt he was very kindly.
thanks
thank’s
Are you looking for a new place to play Ragnarok Online for free?