We seem to rediscover every few months that many users are typing the name of the search engine they are on into the search box. I read many disparaging remarks directed at this very large group of users and I wonder why the remarkers would think this behaviour is ‘clueless’ or ‘dumb’?

Forgetting what the user ’should’ do, lets consider the two options for a moment. Firstly, in terms of physical and functional composition, both methods of navigating the web comprise of a single field and respond to the enter key; so no difference there. Further, one is placed at the top of the screen, the other often nearer to the centre. I’d say thats one factor that the search box has over the navigation bar.

Moving on, the navigation bar will in most cases punish you for mistyping. Google and other engines will offer a link to (most likely) the site you intended. Now thats handy! I’ve started using the search method for those times its handy. Google Desktop makes it easy to get to a search box (just hit ctrl key twice). This is much easier than ctrl-tab a few times combined with another key-combination to open an URL (and then you get to type the URL…). Who wants to be doing what they ’should’ do anyway? That sounds clueless to me!

Not all instances of a search engine name being entered into a search engine is for the above reasons, though. ‘Google’ is entered into the Google search engine because who can remember where all their products are housed. Google, in their effort to deliver a ’simple’ homepage, avoid the portal type page so typing ‘Google’ can be all users can do to find their many great products.

Another point to consider are those keywords put into the navigation bar which aren’t legitimate URLs are often sent to a search engine in browsers such as Firefox. Who wants to spend time repetitively typing the fairly redundant ‘www.’ and ‘.com’ anyway…?

What can we learn from all this anyway? Well next time you consider calling a user stupid, stop yourself and look for the efficiency they are seeking. It can teach you alot about how you could make your application easier. Not everything needs to be reduced to a unthinking action but its worth taking the thinking out of the tasks that don’t require it so that effort is most effectively spent.

Maybe browsers should ditch the navigation bar? Maybe the navigation bar and search box should be one? I’d like to know your thoughts.

Since you are here and reading this I figure you have time to try something out. Don’t worry, this may just save you some time in the future or it may even lead your current project to success earlier.

It sometimes takes an external reminder (something that snaps you out of the myopia that can take hold when working) to provoke you into acting on an simple optimisation; whether it be in your own day-to-day workflow or in your business practices or in the flow of activity your customers pass through.

In web development, a common issue that is overlooked when in the midst of upgrading functionality to a property is that the entry page linking to that feature is underperforming in the delivery of users. I have seen teams toil away, moving mountains only to ignore that traffic will not make it to their creation!

Take the time now to consider your current project. How effective is the page where your users land upon to login or to navigate to your tools or content? Do you measure this page? Is there a high incidence of users bailing without further progression? Are they going to the areas you want them to? Have you made adjustments and measured the affects of those?

I build time into my schedule to do this regularly and always find adjustments that need to be made which would have been overlooked if I had just kept my head down, plowing forwards. I am more recently trying take a similar approach and analysing how I use my tools and whether I can simplify or automate regular tasks.

If you do make some discoveries which are not to your liking, I suggest you take some time to address this before embarking on further development. It will be time well spent.

Google have extended further into personalized search results for those with ‘Search History’ turned on in their Google Account. Its likely to result in all sorts of conjecture which I’d like to sidestep and instead spend a few moments pondering out aloud.

Could personalized search - whether this implementation by Google or a future one (by any provider) help reduce spam results by affecting the potency of SERPs? Imagine a time where everyone’s results are personalized by numerous factors, whether by search history, demographic, geographic, psychographic or any-other-graphic. The concept of SERPs disolves as the results are further segmented into a myriad of micro-niches.

Spammers incentive (and indeed, maybe even legitmate SEO implementers) to occupy the top SERPs must be diminished in line with the diminished reward? Could the effort required to achieve positions across the almost infinite permutations of SERPs (the results for phrases multiplied by all possible personalizations) tip the effort required to achieve a return to un-economic level?

You could argue that the number of permutations could be quite low. Whilst only some keywords will have differing meaning and contexts, most could have a context which may yield a different result for almost any user. This might not be practical, however, as one wonders what logic or intelligence could be used to determine which factors to apply to which keywords. When to apply geographic information, say for searches relating to buying a car versus when not to, in the case of me searching for a solution to a javascript issue I was working on.

Whatever happens, this is an interesting area of development - for ideas covered here as well as the many concerns currently being raised in the blogosphere.

Danny Sullivan does an excellent write-up on this latest release from Google so I suggest heading there for more details.