The purpose of our site search is to assist visitors acquire the knowledge they need as efficiently as possible. Unlike internet search engines, we only have to serve results for our 'family' of sites. However, with more than 150,000 pages, this is still a complicated task, made even more challenging by the distributed authorship model that we live with. In order to do search better we should focus our efforts in four main areas:
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Funnelback allows us to define collection, document/page/file groups with a common thread. We can then use these collections in search to better target and improve relevance, without having to micro-manage each document. For example, subject areas and UG degrees could be two collections, in turn grouped into a meta-collection 'UG study things'. We could search only over this metacollection on the KYM landing page or an UG study hub. So, combined with some site context information or a user-cookie value, we can improve relevancy without expensive content work.
Promoted results
Search service team
We need to make search a team priority, both the ensure it is ongoing rather than intermittent, but also because it requires more capability than one person possesses.
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- Search loads quickly, tested with Google Pagespeed Insights, with a minimum of 80/100.
- The response time of a query should be about 0.1 seconds, but never longer than 1 second, measured at the user interface.
- Search will be available 24/7 (around the clock seven days a week). Monitored by, for instance, Pingdom or Uptimerobot.
- Size of search indexes. Among other things, to see if more or fewer documents are indexed, which can provide warning signs in advance, help being proactive.
- Search’s user interfaces are accessible, tested with the W3C Validator.
- Search’s user interfaces are usable, tested against webbriktlinjer.seand W3C:s WCAG 2.0 at level AA.
- Survey the satisfaction of users.
- Reviewing search statistics and/or performing search analytics, to gain insight into how users are searching. Look regularly at our:
- Top Xx queries: To gain an insight into how the experience of search is for a large part of the users. And also, if the relevance model can be improved and what content is most in demand.
- Abandoned queries:
- Zero result queries: To identify what content is missing, find synonyms to use, understand which abbreviations are used and discover alternative spellings.
Training
Probably everyone who use search are in need of some form of training in the offered features. At least the following user training needs to be actively disseminated and be available when needed:
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- Should we continue to use the 'promoted results' for courses, or transition to subjects? Or degrees?
- Should we be adding key words to subjects and/or subject areas? Can a subject area 'inherit' the keywords of it's component subjects?
- How do we strike a balance between what the user wants to see and what we want the user to see?
https://webstrategyforeveryone.com/example-enterprise-search-strategy/
One helpful model is to consider four different modes used when searching for information
- Known knowledge: Those searching for what is already known is easy to service because the user knows what they want, can express this well and has an idea of where to start looking. E.g. I want to learn my major requirements for the second and third year of my UG degree.
- Exploring: User has an idea of what they want to know, but may have difficulty expressing it, or cannot use the correct terms. The user often know when they have found the right content, but has no knowledge if the result is sufficient. E.g. I want to complete part of my study overseas.
- Do not know what they need: Users often do not know exactly what they need to know. They may believe that they need to know one thing, when in reality it is something else. Sometimes, they visit an information source without any specific purpose. E.g. I am looking for something to study, but don;t really know what I should do.
- Retrieve: User is looking for information that they have prior knowledge of and maybe can even remember where they saw it recently, which source of information it were or they have an idea where to find the content.
http://www.galaxyconsulting.net/images/White_Paper_April_2014.pdf
- Define specific objectives for specific search 'tools'Who is searching?
- What categories of information are they looking for?
- What are they likely to do with the information when they find it?
- Define logical types of searches
- People search
- Product search
- Customer search
- Define the desired scope and inventory repositories
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