In the last few years, there have been two best selling books published that seem diametrically and philosophically opposed: The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz and The Long Tail by Chris Anderson. Both explore the explosion of choice that we have in our modern world and how we might be equipped to navigate through […]
We are emotional creatures. In fact, we are the most emotional creatures on the planet. Emotions are what cause us to act. The very word emotion means “to move” in Latin. Emotions move us to action. They cause us to avoid danger and pursue pleasure. They propel us to genetic propagation and steer us from […]
In the last column, we explored some studies that indicate that conscious will might not be the cause of our actions, but instead might be just one of the effects of a motivator still undefined. Conscious will could simply be a feedback mechanism that helps us keep track of our actions and hides the degree […]
You know what you’re doing, right? We are all rational beings. We are all blessed with huge neocortexes and use them on a regular basis. This is especially so when we do something as thoughtful as use a search engine. Our rational loop is kicked into high gear. Right?
So far in the Human Hardware series, we’ve dealt with working memory (a just released study confirms the limitations of this. See my note at the end of this column), differences between sexes, and Dunbar’s number (Parts One and Two). Today, I want to explore how we can look right at something and not see […]
In the last column, I introduced British evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar’s theory that we have cognitive limits to the number of social relationships we can maintain, and the importance of social grooming in all primates, including humans. Just as a quick recap, based on the relative size of our neocortex, Dunbar calculated that the upper […]
Few things about the internet generate as much buzz as social networking. Suddenly, it looks like the very fabric of our society might be rewoven online. The world becomes our community as we erase geographic boundaries to connect based on shared interests and ideals. Whether your community of choice is Facebook, MySpace, Second Life, or […]
In this week’s column on Human Hardware, we look at the differences between the two basic models of humans: men and women. As a species, the vast majority of our history has been spent not really thinking about the differences between men and women. The distinctions seemed obvious, and while survival was the main objective, […]
At the recent SMX show in Santa Clara I had the opportunity to present at a couple of sessions that explored the topic of user behavior. One of the things I said in one of them is that humans are more alike than we’re different. Because of this, there are some behaviors that a determined […]
As I said in my last column, disambiguating intent is the holy grail of search. John Battelle called search the “database of intentions.” While technically correct, right now those intentions are only vaguely understood. The breadth and complexity of a concept is squeezed into the restrictive container of a keyword query, so the quest for […]
I’ve said a number of times that the holy grail of search is to disambiguate intent. A two or three word query, given the complexity of the English language, is just not enough to confidently provide results that will always be relevant and useful. But up to now, it’s been all we’ve had. Today, however, […]
A few columns ago I talked about user behavior on the results page and compared it to a shopping mall. In recent eye tracking studies, we’ve seen that several factors can create barriers or “walls” in this mall that can keep traffic from ever finding your listing.
One of the things that has always struck me when I look at online user behavior is the scattered and frenetic scanning of the page. This becomes particularly clear when you look at eye tracking results. We quickly shift our eyes to cue to cue, picture to picture, headline to headline, link to link. We […]
Some time ago, I did a blog post called the “Other Long Tail of Search“. When Chris Anderson’s book came out, several smart search marketers realized that the long tail phenomenon applied to our industry as well. If you look at the keywords that drive traffic to your site and plot them according to traffic […]
In 2005, The Advertising Research Foundation (ARF), through their MI4 Initiative, decided to embark on the Quixotic quest of defining engagement. The impetus was finding a more appropriate and applicable metric that could stretch across the rapidly expanding number of channels that were exploding through digital delivery. So, the good folks at ARF assembled a […]
I love big ideas. TED is the conference I most want to attend. I love talking about big ideas. In fact, as you read this, I’ll have the privilege of being one of the Canadians to be featured in Yahoo’s Big Idea Chair campaign (although the spending 30 minutes in make up, or “grooming” as […]
At Search Engine Strategies in San Jose this August, I had the good fortune of being able to share a panel with Nico Brooks from Atlas. I’ve always admired Nico as one of the more strategic thinkers in this space and feel a kindredship, both through our love of research and curiosity about user behavior. […]
In the past two columns, I’ve featured the interviews (Part 1, Part II) of where search might go in the next three years. The two themes consistently mentioned as the most important for the future have been personalization and blended search results. Being a user-centric type of person, my first question was, “how will that […]
Several weeks ago (seemingly years) Just Behave featured Part One of the summarized interviews with my personal dream team of search usability: Jakob Nielsen, the Web’s best-known usability guru Marissa Mayer, Google’s VP of user experience and interface design Michael Ferguson, one of the architects of Ask’s unique user experience Larry Cornett, the VP of […]
If I ever had to build a search engine, or more precisely, the interface of a search engine, this would be the team I would want to bring together. When I came up with the idea of looking forward three years and speculating on what the search results page may look like in 2010, these […]
When we’re talking about the search user experience, we’re always balancing two sources of information, organic and sponsored listings (at least, for now), with the overall objective of delivering the user the most relevant results based on their query. At this time, nobody has done that more successfully, from the user’s perspective, than Google. And […]
I’m currently working on a column (series?) for Just Behave where we’ll explore what the search results page might look like in the year 2010. As part of that I sent out invitations to a number of my contacts in the usability world, including Marissa Mayer (Google), Michael Ferguson (Ask), Larry Cornett (Yahoo!), Justin Osmer […]
A few weeks ago in Toronto at Search Engine Strategies, I mentioned in one of the sessions I was moderating that in Canada, the sponsored search listings are the slums of the results page. In this case, I meant that until the big brands and the recognized advertisers move into sponsored search in a meaningful […]
I thought the easiest way to share the results of the Chinese Eye Tracking study might be in a Q&A format, as that’s what most research programs tend to be anyway. I’ll cover off some of the highlight findings in this column, but the full report will be available on our site next week. On […]
Last week I had the opportunity to present some very preliminary results from our Chinese eye tracking study to a Chinese audience at Search Engine Strategies Xiamen. We’re still going over the results and preparing a final report, the highlights of which I’ll cover in this column in a few weeks. What I did want […]
I love an underdog, especially a smart underdog. So I’m definitely rooting for Ask.com, because I think they’ve been an undervalued player in the search game. All the headlines have been focused on the big three and in the meantime, the team back at Ask.com has been quietly building a better search engine. A much […]
A few weeks back, we looked at how the major engines, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, handled shopping search. This week we look at four of the dedicated shopping search portals: BizRate.com, Shopping.com, Shopzilla.com, NexTag.com, and a relative newcomer to the space, Become.com. Each of these properties matched up quite well in terms of user experience […]
Last week I had the chance to talk to Marissa Mayer, Google VP, Search Products & User Experience, and Sep Kamvar, engineering lead for personalization at Google, about the inclusion of Web History into personalized search. On the face of it, this is another beta announcement from Google that will impact a relatively small number […]
This week I’ll look at shopping search from the user’s perspective. We’ll be starting with the big three offerings from the major engines, Google’s Froogle, Yahoo Shopping and MSN Shopping. In the next Just Behave column I’ll be taking a test drive of some of the dedicated shopping search properties and see how they stack […]
Last week on Just Behave, I talked about the importance of consideration sets in search; how we tend to slice off three or four top listings in our consideration set at the beginning of our interaction with the search results page. Today I want to talk about another concept, no less important, that looks at […]
As humans, we have a limited capacity to consider our alternatives. Within our brains, there is a limited amount of shelf space available for us to temporarily put our options on to examine them and make our decision. We have cognitive limits to the amount of information we can process at any given time. When […]
In the past two weeks I’ve had the opportunity to talk to both Marissa Mayer and Matt Cutts about the impact of personalization at Google. While the initial storm following Google’s announcement seems to be dying down somewhat, the ripple effects can still be felt throughout the SEM industry. In future columns I’ll probably be […]
Last week I talked with Google’s Marissa Mayer about the user side of personalization. This week I had the chance to sit down with Matt Cutts at the Googleplex and asked him what the impact of personalization will be on the SEO community. One thing that was interesting in the Marissa Mayer interview was finding […]
It was almost 3 weeks ago today that Google posted on their corporate blog about some changes to the personalized search sign-up process. Danny covered this development quite nicely in a very comprehensive post, looking at the specifics of the announcement and what it means for users. The announcement and the subsequent posts have set […]
For the past three weeks we’ve let members of usability teams from Google, Yahoo and Microsoft talk about a user experiences on their respective sites. Today, I’d like to point out what was interesting in each of these three interviews. In talking to each of them, I couldn’t help but notice the pervasiveness of the […]
This week, I talk with Justin Osmer from Microsoft, a Senior Product Manager with the Online Services Group, which includes both MSN and Windows Live, including Windows Live Search. Obviously, the last few months have been busy ones at Microsoft, with the roll out of Windows Live and the transition from MSN Search. We talked […]
This week I caught up with Larry Cornett, the relatively new Director of User Experience Design at Yahoo and Kathryn Kelly, Director of PR for Yahoo! Search. Again, to set the stage for the interview, here are some high level findings from our eye tracking study that I’ll be discussing in more detail with Larry […]
Marissa Mayer has been the driving force behind Google’s Spartan look and feel from the very earliest days. In this wide-ranging interview, I talked with Marissa about everything from interface design to user behavior to the biggest challenge still to be solved with search as we currently know it. I had asked for the interview […]