WebWord

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:

1. finding
2. hunting
3. seeking
4. wondering
5. exploring
6. problem solving
7. 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.

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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.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 25th, 2005 at 7:59 am and is filed under Usability. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.