Danny Hope wrote:
> I'm not aware of any research into this specific issue but
> usability guidelines would suggest the following:
>
> People don't arrive at your site with a mental model of the
> underlying architecture - they are unaware that some content
> is stored in a separate database.
>
> People think that a white box in the top-right of the page
> will let them search the entire site.
>
> Displaying a second, section-specific, search facility on
> pages within that section is a good idea from a usability
> point of view.
>
> (Also, splitting the search results into sections is a good
> way to help people understand how things are organized.)
I'd agree with Danny. Scoped search (of the kind where you have to
select which 'collection' you want to query from a dropdown before you
hit search) is generally pretty confusing.
In addition, I suspect users will have a strong expectation when
searching a collection of physical objects that the search results
return a thumbnail photo of the objects along with the title and a brief
blurb. This then automatically gives you a way of visually separating
page results and object results in the general site-wide search.
You can get a hint at this (although it's not quite the same) when
searching our website - http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/Search .
This strategy also seems to be the same as where Google is heading with
its Universal Search:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/05/universal-search-best-answer-is-s
till.html
Frankie Roberto
Science Museum
http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk
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