Relevance and User SatisfactionSearch relevance is usually thought of as a statistic that measures whether the search results match the query. That is useful in the lab, but not as useful for a search installation. When search is part of a site, we need to understand how it helps the users of that site. Can they find things quickly? Are they comfortable with the search? Focusing on user satisfaction helps avoid manager centered design, but you also need to know how the search engine helps your users. There are two main aspects of this: effectiveness and trust. You change different things to improve each of these. In order to improve relevance, you must be very clear about what it is, and what it means to make it better. You might end up tweaking the engine, changing what content is indexed, adding editorial results (“Best Bets” or “Quick Links”), or changing the presentation. I look at relevance two ways. UI Effectiveness: Relevant results reduce the number of clicks before visitors reach their goal. With every click, you lose visitors, maybe as many as 10%. Relevant results at the top mean fewer clicks. Ultraseek can measure the number of clicks per result page and report that. Fewer clicks is better, though zero clicks is not good, because it means the visitor left without visiting any results. To put specific results at the top, use Quick Links. But make sure this is based on user behavior, not on the org chart or datasheets. Quick Links must be more relevant than the first result. Transparency and Trust: When users have some clue about why the results are presented, they trust the engine more. This is a transparency issue, and I think it is the biggest advantage of passage-based summaries. The passages are the engine explaining, ‘this is why I’m showing you this document.’ It makes a huge difference in how comfortable visitors are. Relevance also increases trust. Irrelevant Quick Links will decrease trust, so be careful. By Walter Underwood Principal Software Architect Posted June 22, 2005 07:22 AM by editor
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