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People don’t enjoy more complex search inputs. This can be readily seen at libraries where users strongly desire Google-style catalog search and don’t like bein

People don’t enjoy more complex search inputs. This can be readily seen at libraries where users strongly desire Google-style catalog search and don’t like being shown separate fields for author, title, keyword, etc. Worldcat hid that traditional search view years ago and, like Google, keeps it around for those who prefer it. Increasing max query length seems more promising since it keeps the simple interface. Search expectations are changing as we Google more verbose errors and eventually expect to shape our search queries as we do our GPT prompts with extra moods, language styles, countries of origin, etc.

eganist 4y ago
> Worldcat hid that traditional search view years ago and, like Google, keeps it around for those who prefer it. In fact, it's so true that in order to find Advanced Search on Google and it doesn't occur to you to go into the settings menu in the top right (the gear - because why would anyone bury Advanced Search there anyway?), you have to actually google Advanced Search. For Google to have buried it like this, Advanced Search must've been confusing the vast majority of people who tried to use it.
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  > For Google to have buried it like this, Advanced Search must've been confusing the vast majority of people who tried to use it. Apple, the industry leading expert of UX, didn't have copy/paste in iOS for years. Compelling evidence that copy/paste is too complicated for people, right? Then one day they added copy/paste, I guess the nature of people changed over night and Apple merely responded to this new tolerance for complexity. They're the experts, after all. Or maybe, [tech company] not implementing [feature] isn't good evidence for that feature being undesirable to the public.
  - eganist 4y ago
    > Apple, the industry leading expert of UX, didn't have copy/paste in iOS for years. Compelling evidence that copy/paste is too complicated for people, right? Then one day they added copy/paste, I guess the nature of people changed over night and Apple merely responded to this new tolerance for complexity. They're the experts, after all. > Or maybe, [tech company] not implementing [feature] isn't good evidence for that feature being undesirable to the public. Not sure Google burying advanced search is a good analogy here since Google once used to make advanced search easily accessible from the main page. In fact, they still do depending on your user agent. Case in point: Wayback Machine's view from today. https://web.archive.org/web/20220909000247/https://www.google.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20220909000247/https://www.googl... The fact that its appearance is variable would seem to suggest it's a very deliberate decision to determine whether to surface it, unlike Apple just trying to force its own worldview.
    - MichaelCollins 4y ago
      My point is that these companies are not ruthlessly scientific user experience optimization machines. Google burying advanced search should not be taken as evidence that users didn't like advanced search.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    Apple added copy paste two years after the iPhone was introduced https://www.engadget.com/2009-03-17-iphone-finally-gets-copy-and-paste.html https://www.engadget.com/2009-03-17-iphone-finally-gets-copy...
- dmurray 4y ago
  > For Google to have buried it like this, Advanced Search must've been confusing the vast majority of people who tried to use it. Or, pushing people towards the simplified "let us figure out what you want" showed slightly better ad conversion rates.
panick21_ 4y ago
How about instead of doing really dumb complex forms we put our thinking heads on and try to optimize the process. If you type 'Tolkin' the UI could suggest 'Author' and if you click on it adds it as a constraint. There are all kinds of things you could do by having a simple switch to complex search and have interesting options with a good UI.
- 1123581321 4y ago
  I think something like that can work, but at Google scale, the suggestions would have to not hinder users who accidentally click them or think they did something just by appearing. Google has largely succeeded by trying to guess when the searcher means the author Tolkien without any UI prompt/change.
  - panick21_ 4y ago
    Again, I don't want to replace the initial model, but have a 'Complex Search' page that does this. The issue is that sometimes you know you want to the 'Rust' programming language, not the 'Rust' video game. And in a complex search you could express these things and you could get much better results.
    - 1123581321 4y ago
      Sorry, I missed that you were proposing this for a separate search page and not the main search.

eganist 4y ago

> Worldcat hid that traditional search view years ago and, like Google, keeps it around for those who prefer it. In fact, it's so true that in order to find Advanced Search on Google and it doesn't occur to you to go into the settings menu in the top right (the gear - because why would anyone bury Advanced Search there anyway?), you have to actually google Advanced Search. For Google to have buried it like this, Advanced Search must've been confusing the vast majority of people who tried to use it.

MichaelCollins 4y ago
> For Google to have buried it like this, Advanced Search must've been confusing the vast majority of people who tried to use it. Apple, the industry leading expert of UX, didn't have copy/paste in iOS for years. Compelling evidence that copy/paste is too complicated for people, right? Then one day they added copy/paste, I guess the nature of people changed over night and Apple merely responded to this new tolerance for complexity. They're the experts, after all. Or maybe, [tech company] not implementing [feature] isn't good evidence for that feature being undesirable to the public.
- eganist 4y ago
  > Apple, the industry leading expert of UX, didn't have copy/paste in iOS for years. Compelling evidence that copy/paste is too complicated for people, right? Then one day they added copy/paste, I guess the nature of people changed over night and Apple merely responded to this new tolerance for complexity. They're the experts, after all. > Or maybe, [tech company] not implementing [feature] isn't good evidence for that feature being undesirable to the public. Not sure Google burying advanced search is a good analogy here since Google once used to make advanced search easily accessible from the main page. In fact, they still do depending on your user agent. Case in point: Wayback Machine's view from today. https://web.archive.org/web/20220909000247/https://www.google.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20220909000247/https://www.googl... The fact that its appearance is variable would seem to suggest it's a very deliberate decision to determine whether to surface it, unlike Apple just trying to force its own worldview.
  - MichaelCollins 4y ago
    My point is that these companies are not ruthlessly scientific user experience optimization machines. Google burying advanced search should not be taken as evidence that users didn't like advanced search.
- scarface74 4y ago
  Apple added copy paste two years after the iPhone was introduced https://www.engadget.com/2009-03-17-iphone-finally-gets-copy-and-paste.html https://www.engadget.com/2009-03-17-iphone-finally-gets-copy...
dmurray 4y ago
> For Google to have buried it like this, Advanced Search must've been confusing the vast majority of people who tried to use it. Or, pushing people towards the simplified "let us figure out what you want" showed slightly better ad conversion rates.

panick21_ 4y ago

How about instead of doing really dumb complex forms we put our thinking heads on and try to optimize the process. If you type 'Tolkin' the UI could suggest 'Author' and if you click on it adds it as a constraint. There are all kinds of things you could do by having a simple switch to complex search and have interesting options with a good UI.

1123581321 4y ago
I think something like that can work, but at Google scale, the suggestions would have to not hinder users who accidentally click them or think they did something just by appearing. Google has largely succeeded by trying to guess when the searcher means the author Tolkien without any UI prompt/change.
- panick21_ 4y ago
  Again, I don't want to replace the initial model, but have a 'Complex Search' page that does this. The issue is that sometimes you know you want to the 'Rust' programming language, not the 'Rust' video game. And in a complex search you could express these things and you could get much better results.
  - 1123581321 4y ago
    Sorry, I missed that you were proposing this for a separate search page and not the main search.