Search usability is one of the crucial factors of positive user experience for websites and mobile apps. Especially, the ones that contain a lot of items to choose from, be it news, blog articles, ecommerce goods, pieces of art, or anything else. Our today’s article provides some handy insights and design practices on making internal search intuitive and easy to use.

What Is Internal Search

Internal search is the function of browsing the content inside the website or app and showing it to the user according to his or her search query. Tuned correctly, it shows the relevant content and this way provides the shortcut to what the user needs. Thus, the internal search saves the user’s time and effort, amplifies usability and desirability of the digital product, supports user retainment and increases conversion rates. Easy to see that this element is vital.

The interactive element responsible for the internal search in the user interface is a search field. A search field, which is also called a search box or search bar, presents the interface element that enables a user to type in the search query and this way find the pieces of content that are needed.

When to Use Internal Search

Whatever great you find the navigation of your interface, if your website or app is made of 50+ pages, it’s high time you considered applying the internal search. Well-designed and easily found search field enables the user to jump to the necessary point without browsing through the numerous pages and menus. This approach is a common pattern of user behavior now, it respects the user’s time and effort, so it is highly demanded in user-friendly interfaces.

Why is it important to have a search inside? Earlier the recommendations about applying the internal search started from 100-200 pages on the website, but now we find them outdated a bit. Modern users are spoilt with a variety of choices and options offered by a constantly growing number of resources on the Web and in the app stores. If a visitor has already come to your website, your task is to give them what they want as soon as possible. And in most cases, users (especially led from external search engines) come to a resource with a specific goal or query and without the wish to spend much time looking for it. Search enables them to make their journey focused and effective.

In case you have a single-page website, if your app or website is concise and not heavily-packed with content, the internal search is not needed. Well-thought navigation will be enough, for example, for a corporate or portfolio website highlighting core information and services.

However, designing search usability, don’t make the opposite mistake: don’t prioritize search over navigation in a user interface. Based on everything mentioned above, designers may think that search is the best and only interactive element worth their attention. And that’s a big mistake. Although many users do try getting closer to their aim via search, there are also others who may have problems with search interactions. For example, they don’t know a language well enough to form the correct query, it’s not convenient for them to type something in, or they just hate thinking over the textual queries and they would prefer to follow the already existing navigation and cues rather than the cognitive load of communicating to the system via the search.

Take that into account and strive for a good balance of navigation and search.

Continue to read the full article on blog.tubikstudio.com!