The iQ Clinic: Google problems
The problem:
Rob Brooks, who manages an Intranet site for a large public agency in the UK, has sent in a real conundrum for the first iQ Clinic feature. Rob has noticed some strange user behaviour when checking the weekly log of search terms. Week after week, the top query is "Google".
— Published September 29th, 2005 | by John Wood
Our advice
This is not really a case of user error, seen from the user's perspective. Rob's users obviously consider it perfectly rational to type the name of the place they want to go to into a search box, and I can understand that. Why shouldn't search work that way? I often type the name of a site into the Google text box in my browser toolbar because it can be quicker than looking through a mass of bookmarks or typing the URL (if I can recall it).
However, you can question whether it is wise to redirect. Having the search engine return the address of the Google site as the first search result would have been my preferred solution. That's how search works, so it’s best to meet those expectations. But now that Rob has taken to redirecting these queries automatically, he has set new and different expectations. In effect, he has duplicated Google’s "I feel Lucky feature".
So what should Rob do? He has three options:
- Re-educate users, presumably by pointing out their 'error'. I think this is a terrible idea.
- Place a link to Google as the top result on the search returns for this query and stop redirecting users.
- Continue to redirect users to Google for this query.
Because Rob has already started to redirect users, thereby setting their expectations of how the site works, I'd go for option 3. But I'd remove that 15 second delay — if you decide to redirect them, just get on with it and get them to where they want to be.
The moral of this story is, when users keep doing things in a certain way, we designers should listen to them, understand their intentions and change our design to suit. After all, that’s the whole point of user centred design.
Got a problem?
And remember, if you're struggling with a web issue — be it accessibility, usability, content, strategy or politics — send us a brief outline of the problem, and we'll choose one and provide some suggestions and pointers in next month's issue. Think of us as your digital agony aunts, and send your questions to theclinic@iqcontent.com
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