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Every search bar looks like a URL bar to users

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Re: Every search bar looks like a URL bar to users

#51

Post by garaetjjte »

londons_explore wrote: post #29
phkahler wrote: post #12

This is because Google and Microsoft have confused the users by allowing them to type whatever into wherever and they just figure it out. Some would call that good UI - probably myself included - but it teaches bad behavior and makes people dumber by obscuring what things really are.

In the 1980's, taking away the 'choke' lever which assisted starting a car was seen by some as removing a critical control. Yet automatic chokes became standard, and today's drivers usually don't even know or care what a choke even is. Todays people have other things to spend their time learning. People of tomorrow may not need to know or care what the difference is between a search box and a URL bar. All they know i…

I don't think this is good example, choke valve just doesn't exist on any "modern" car.

Re: Every search bar looks like a URL bar to users

#52

Post by leodriesch »

picture wrote: post #2

Just yesterday I witnessed my friend type a url into the google search bar (on the results page). She found what she was looking for, so I guess that's alright.

These moments are so painful to watch, yet I rarely speak up to my non-technical friends because I wouldn’t want to criticize them all the time.

Re: Every search bar looks like a URL bar to users

#53

Post by efitz »

dylan604 wrote: post #45
coldpie wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is actively trying to kill the URL[1]. I'm not sure whether it's good or bad, but it is a goal of theirs to fundamentally change or eliminate the URL entry bar, yes. [1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/06/google-chrome-ends-i...

>I'm not sure whether it's good or bad, It's bad, very very bad

If it’s Google doing something to try to change the internet, it approaches certainty that it’s bad, whatever “it” is.

Re: Every search bar looks like a URL bar to users

#54

Post by admax88qqq »

phkahler wrote: post #12

This is because Google and Microsoft have confused the users by allowing them to type whatever into wherever and they just figure it out. Some would call that good UI - probably myself included - but it teaches bad behavior and makes people dumber by obscuring what things really are.

> but it teaches bad behavior

I wouldn't call it bad behaviour. Why are the users behaving bad and not the interfaces? Computers are meant to serve users.

Re: Every search bar looks like a URL bar to users

#55

Post by shadowgovt »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #34

I'm pretty sure that this is deliberate. The URL bar isn't really under the site's control (although Web sites have more access to it, these days, than they used to). If you can get users to interact with the elements directly under the site's control, then the site has ... more control. Also, it's actually not a bad idea to have a "Swiss Army Knife" text entry. It's sort of what users expect. Couple that with advanc…

Worth remembering is that Amazon has the metrics to know how useful this change was to end-users.

I'd be willing to wager that a scan of their search logs for how often "http://" shows up in them is a non-negligible amount.

Re: Every search bar looks like a URL bar to users

#56

Post by Spivak »

shadowgovt wrote: post #48
phkahler wrote: post #12

This is because Google and Microsoft have confused the users by allowing them to type whatever into wherever and they just figure it out. Some would call that good UI - probably myself included - but it teaches bad behavior and makes people dumber by obscuring what things really are.

> and makes people dumber by obscuring what things really are. "What things really are" is microscopic invisible electrical patterns thrumming through specially-shaped chemically-doped sand to shove some crystals back and forth to change some reflected and emitted light frequencies that hit a human eye to be interpreted by a human brain. Literally everything about UX is obscuring what things really are, because what…

I think a good point to bring up despite it being absurd. It's not that current trends in UX hide "what things really are" because we all decide what the metaphors are so much as current UX trends don't teach users the vocabulary we use to talk about the parts of a UI. You literally just have to know what a "search bar" is -- nothing is ever going to tell you. There's no text on the screen that says "Search Bar."

The fact that people who work in tech have to jump from precise terminology like "open your browser, and navigate to $URL" to stuff like "click the E and then find the bar at the top where you search thing and type..." is 100% our failing. We are the ones responsible for creating a population of people who are tech "illiterate" because we've spend all our time and effort keeping the words from users.

Re: Every search bar looks like a URL bar to users

#57

Post by dhosek »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #34

I'm pretty sure that this is deliberate. The URL bar isn't really under the site's control (although Web sites have more access to it, these days, than they used to). If you can get users to interact with the elements directly under the site's control, then the site has ... more control. Also, it's actually not a bad idea to have a "Swiss Army Knife" text entry. It's sort of what users expect. Couple that with advanc…

I used to be able to turn stuff up deep into the web with Google back around 2000–2001 through careful choice of keywords. Google's NLP stuff has effectively destroyed that ability and some of the deep search techniques I used to be able to employ no longer work and while the information is definitely still on the web, it's harder to surface (while web spam rises to the top of Google results).

Re: Every search bar looks like a URL bar to users

#58

Post by Avicebron »

shadowgovt wrote: post #48
phkahler wrote: post #12

This is because Google and Microsoft have confused the users by allowing them to type whatever into wherever and they just figure it out. Some would call that good UI - probably myself included - but it teaches bad behavior and makes people dumber by obscuring what things really are.

> and makes people dumber by obscuring what things really are. "What things really are" is microscopic invisible electrical patterns thrumming through specially-shaped chemically-doped sand to shove some crystals back and forth to change some reflected and emitted light frequencies that hit a human eye to be interpreted by a human brain. Literally everything about UX is obscuring what things really are, because what…

I think the post was really talking about the limits of human agency. If we could easily and manually move those electrons ourselves, we probably would be vastly more intuitive and able to tailor the best answer for our query. I think having a relatively intelligible URL bar allows people more freedom from whatever the larger agenda those who would have such an advanced search bar that you type in "object" and it automatically directs you to "big co's" sale of that object with no real thought, why encourage people to use less of their capacity to navigate? Overall I think we should be elevating society not abstracting away any effort to the detriment of the human mind.

"As we approach the limit of efficiency, movement because becomes so little that it is practically inert, nothing has to move because it's already there, where it is supposed to be" - me

Re: Every search bar looks like a URL bar to users

#59

Post by soylentcola »

david422 wrote: post #47
rosseloh wrote: post #35

On phone support calls I usually can't even get people who know what a URL, URL bar, or even a search bar, is in the first place. "The box at the top where you type in websites you want to go to." "What are you talking about? I'm computer illiterate, I can't learn any of this fancy tech stuff. I just click my facebook icon and it comes up!" These people get all sorts of confused when something happens in their browse…

This is my mom. Trying to walk her through steps on the phone like logins and lost passwords is a nightmare. I imagine it would be like a car mechanic trying to walk me through changing the oil over the phone. Since it's not in my interests, I just want it to work, I don't have any desire to learn it.

At the same time, oil changes are more of a hassle that you only need to deal with every year or two. You can get away with not bothering to sort it out (and even if you know how, it might be worth the extra cost to just pay someone to do it faster on those rare occasions).

But if you use a computer to access resources and services on the web, you probably do so much more frequently than you change your oil. I'd liken it more to knowing how the turn signals, headlight controls, and wipers work on a car.

You don't need to know how to repair those items or how exactly they operate. But since that familiarity is something inherent to the operation of a car, you should at least know the basics of usage if you plan to do much driving.

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