Design vs Art Blog

Giving users the chance to narrow the search from the beginning might increase the possibility that they find the information or product they are looking for at your website. One usability approach is to provide a search box with a list of subsections. Here an example of Cafepress.com, a design-it-yourself shop.

Give users a list of selectors, specially if you are offering a wide range of products. But take care, many users might not understand how the selector works, so make the “search all departments” the default option.

Etsy.com, the handmade product website, got a not so perfect solution, subsections are not very clear. They split the subsections into farther subsections using “items:” and “sellers:”, plus they assume that all users understand the meaning and use of tags.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Being consistent with the search box position is going to help your users when looking for the products you sell online. Many could say that the right position for the search box is the upper right corner. Maybe Yes.

But setting your own search box position is a practical web design option. Keep in mind that you should place the search box in the same place across your whole website.

Check, for example, Foodnetwork.com, a website about cooking. It doesn’t matter where your are, there is only one search box, always in the same place.

On the other side, an example of poor usability, could be found at Colorware.com. At the beginning the search box is in the right position, after the user makes a search another search box appears in the middle of the screen. This is confusing for some users, many click once again the search button but this time in the new search box.

Popularity: 10% [?]