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Because it's a stupid thing to do. It makes sense to complete a query once it is obvious what the user wants to write. That's helpful, you saved me from typing
by jakobegger 8y ago
Because it's a stupid thing to do. It makes sense to complete a query once it is obvious what the user wants to write. That's helpful, you saved me from typing a few characters.
But if you suggest completions for queries at a point where it isn't yet obvious what the user wants, you are no longer just helpful. You are steering people in a certain direction, whether that's your intent or not. You are effectively telling people, hey, try this query, it's popular, even if the user had no intent of typing that query.
- anonytrary 8y agoOkay, I see your point now. Content discovery can be decomposed into "push" and "pull". In the 90s, searching was typically associated with pull. Over time, engines started providing a push component (e.g. autocomplete). It sounds like you want search engines to be mostly pull with less push. You want the push to be more local to what you specifically choose to pull, which means greatly reducing the current scope of the push component. I guess that's fine, but a lot of people really like the push component, especially if they don't quite know what they're looking for. I think the whole of the two methods is more valuable than the sum of the parts.