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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

#91

Post by Tostino »

coldpie wrote: post #41
dylan604 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has always perplexed me. The fact that so many people use a search engine for new windows/tabs combined with browsers shrinking the URL bar to near non-existence makes this an obvious thing people will do though. Reminds me of the old AOL keywords. It's all about getting those precious analytics. If the users go to a website directly from typing a URL, 3rd parties loose those metrics.

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...

Well I just learned how to stop Chrome from hiding the https:// at the start of URLs from that link, so thank you.

I really hate what Google is doing in this area with their immense power over the web. It may be more friendly for those who just don't care how computers work and just want their Facebook button, but it's very hostile for those who do know how they work.

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

#92

Post by zeven7 »

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.

I disagree. My grandfather was happily typing websites into search bars long before the two bars were combined into one. Users weren't taught to do this any more than babies were taught to cry.

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

#93

Post by rspeele »

soylentcola wrote: post #59
david422 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 like…

> (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)

Going off on a tangent:

I thought that this would be the case when I switched to changing my own oil -- if I was feeling lazy, I could always have the shop do it. But I found out right away that when the local quick-change place does it, they tighten the drain plug and oil filter to roughly a zillion ft-lbs. So if I pay them to do it, I am making the job way more of a pain in the butt for myself next time I want to do it, because I'll spend half an hour just struggling to remove those.

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

#94

Post by soylentcola »

coldtea wrote: post #43
ltbarcly3 wrote: post #17

People who don't know anything get confused, but this is going to be older people who are struggling to use computers, the people that call the Microsoft Edge icon "the internet". Generalizing that "users don't understand" from some autocomplete suggestions does not logically follow.

> People who don't know anything get confused, but this is going to be older people who are struggling to use computers, the people that call the Microsoft Edge icon "the internet". You'd be surprised. Research has found that the "digital native" generations (younger people born into/after the internet age) are no better at these things than the "older people" - the whole "digital native" thing is a myth in this rega…

I see this a lot working with grad students and professors.

Older than a certain age = much more likely to have less experience with computers as they didn't grow up learning how to use them/only learned specific tasks and applications as needed for work and online communication/shopping/etc.

Younger than a certain age = much more likely to only have experience with mobile, "apps", and turnkey solutions. Knows the details of popular platforms but little in terms of troubleshooting, workarounds, or generally anything that can't be solved by clicking a link or pointing to a picture on a screen.

Granted, there are loads of exceptions because, as you say, there's nothing stopping you from learning about something if you have an interest. It's more a matter of who has run across a need to look into something in the course of their life. If you grew up in the period between personal computers becoming common and the explosion of web apps/mobile devices, chances are you had to figure out how to do something at some point. That's not necessarily the case before or after.

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

#95

Post by jikbd »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #15
vadfa wrote: post #4

What I find more troubling is that amazon allows unmoderated user input to appear as suggestions.

I've had a bunch of bots doing oddly specific nonsense searches in my search engine, stuff like casinos, online pharmacies, warez. The bermuda triangle of dodgy internet sites. They are very strange because they are both generic and specific at the same time. Here is an example: > skyrim english voice files (and subtitles) latest version You get no results with my search engine, but interestingly, if you feed that in…

They were probably trying to post spam and thought your search bar was a comment input field.

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

#96

Post by philote »

tobr wrote: post #50

A similar problem I’ve ran into both in tech support and user studies is momentary blindness for the scope of search. For example on your Mac, you have Spotlight, Finder search, Google search, help menu search, and various application-specific or website-specific search fields. In my experience if two of those are on screen at the same time, it’s very easy to get confused about which one to use to get which type of r…

Also, there sometimes isn't a good separation between the browser and the page itself. For example, I use a dark theme on my browser and was on a site that had a dark nav bar above their logo. They also had another navigation area, so I didn't even notice the top nav bar. I couldn't figure out how to log out of the site due to that.

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

#97

Post by Tostino »

dhosek wrote: post #57
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).

Certain types of searches, Google is great still. No problem with them for programming issues, finding libraries, etc... But try and find an actual review of a product? Fat chance.

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

#98

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

rspeele wrote: post #93
soylentcola wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 like…

> (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) Going off on a tangent: I thought that this would be the case when I switched to changing my own oil -- if I was feeling lazy, I could always have the shop do it. But I found out right away that when the local quick-change place does it, they tighten the drain plug and oil filter to roughly a zil…

You aren't wrong. We often had to screwdriver the filters loose.

We moved to a bigger property, have 5 cars. It's easier now to change 2 or 3 at a time.

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

#99

Post by nathancahill »

coldpie wrote: post #41
dylan604 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has always perplexed me. The fact that so many people use a search engine for new windows/tabs combined with browsers shrinking the URL bar to near non-existence makes this an obvious thing people will do though. Reminds me of the old AOL keywords. It's all about getting those precious analytics. If the users go to a website directly from typing a URL, 3rd parties loose those metrics.

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...

iOS and now Safari only display the domain, so not great either.

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

#100

Post by coldpie »

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

I tend to agree, but at the same time I find anecdotes like this comment elsewhere in this thread[1] compelling. It may be we're just wrong and there really is a better way to do it, I've certainly been wrong about plenty of other things. Dunno.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28864722

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