Introduction

WITH ALL THE BOOKS on search and finding, why do you need yet another one? Because search is one of the oldest, most fundamental, yet challenging and rapidly evolving problems facing humanity today. This book focuses on one specific application of search: ecommerce search—whether on the Web, smartphones, or tablet devices such as the iPad. Rather than covering larger questions involving frameworks and search-related theories, I've decided to focus on helping you improve your ecommerce search user experience in direct and measurable ways. You learn all about the most effective design patterns and tips which can cause your customers to buy more, leave your store happier, and tell their friends and social networks about the positive experience they had using your site or mobile app.

Some of the design approaches introduced in this book have earned their reputation through repeated successful application. Others are novel applications of fundamental design principles—or new design ideas just waiting for their opportunity. Both the time-tested design patterns, and the new design ideas flow directly from a rich source: the hundreds of lab studies and field observations I've carried out over the years. In short, I've written this book for UX designers, engineers, and product managers who are ready to take their ecommerce search user interface to the next level and win in the marketplace.

I hope this book inspires you to look beyond the obvious, have fun designing innovative solutions, and experiment with what you learn. Designing effective ecommerce search solutions presents a truly wicked design challenge, which is what makes it so interesting!

How This Book Is Structured

This book is broken into three parts comprising 17 chapters.

Part I: Optimizing eCommerce Search Results Pages

Part I discusses ways to optimize the layout and content of ecommerce search results pages. It also covers the importance of no search results pages; provides a quick but useful framework for understanding why shoppers behave as they do, taken from different perspectives of industry's thought leaders and a construct of shopper roles; describes how to avoid pogosticking; discusses the use of thumbnail images; and provides answers to the important but difficult question of how to deal with ads on search results pages.

Part II: Designing eCommerce Search Interactions

Part II covers a wide array of topics related to the design of intuitive and effective ecommerce search interactions. It discusses interaction design for faceted search filters, with particular emphasis on the most challenging filtering problems: numeric filters and date filters; sorting; query disambiguation; offers a useful but under-used More Like This design pattern; and closes with a chapter on breadcrumbs.

Part III: The Future of eCommerce Search

Part III discusses current and near-future opportunities for innovative design in the realm of ecommerce search. It covers diverse topics such as visual browsing; limitations and opportunities in designing mobile search user interfaces, with particular attention to the challenges of faceted search results on mobile devices; and designing search for ecommerce help systems. The book closes with search strategies specific to tablet devices.

Case Studies

Several chapters include one or more case studies that discuss a real-world search application and explain how to redesign a problem interface using the techniques shown in the book. Case studies are important because they are meant to summarize the chapter material and explain how to use what you learned in a practical application.

Perspectives and Excerpts

In addition to the case studies, selected chapters include perspectives by leading UX practitioners and excerpts from a variety of notable UX books. Perspectives are meant to enhance your knowledge by expanding the chapter topic, providing an interesting angle or example, or taking a deeper look at a specific aspect of the material discussed in the chapter.

Conventions

Throughout the book you'll encounter several icons which you can use to quickly refresh your memory each time you revisit the material.

The pattern icon identifies approaches you should consider when implementing concepts discussed throughout the chapter.

The antipattern icon identifies approaches which should be avoided when implementing concepts discussed throughout the chapter.

Exploring Beyond This Book

If you want more information about ecommerce search, visit its companion Web sites for more resources and inspiration in the form of my articles and blog posts:

• DesignCaffeine—DesignCaffeine.com/DesigningSearch
• UXmatters Books—www.uxmatters.com/ux-books/uxmatters-books/designing-ecommerce-search.php

How to Contact the Author

You can reach Greg through his Web site, DesignCaffeine.com which also houses his blog and links to useful resources.