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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

#151

Post by Drew_ »

jeffasinger wrote: post #78
nend wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Family members for me, but they don't understand the difference between the windows search box in the task bar (next to the "start" button), and google. The difference between Chrome and google.com is lost on them as well. It's a good exercise in patience for me while we go through the steps of describing the differences between searching for things on your computer vs searching for things on the internet, what googl…

Interestingly, I think we're seeing less people grow up with general purpose computers, and instead just have an iPad or an android tablet, or a chromebook. I wonder what things will look in 20 years.

Probably more and more like what this The Verge report finds on how students don't really know what files and folders are:

https://www.theverge.com/22684730/students-file-folder-direc...

As things get more and more offloaded to the cloud, local computing is something only developers, engineers, and geeks will properly understand.

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

#152

Post by silisili »

Am I the only one more thoroughly confused by Amazon's double search bars on the orders page? Specifically mobile web, I think.

When you click orders, you essentially have three inputs - URL bar, Amazon search, and Amazon search orders. More than 50% of the time I go to search something in my orders, I end up typing it in the Amazon search bar and kicking off a new search. So, count me as a statistic of someone dumb enough to be confused by text inputs.

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

#153

Post by coldpie »

dylan604 wrote: post #136
coldpie wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you will find you are in a tiny minority. Most people don't care about that, and you have a long uphill battle to convince them they should, especially if they find this new experience more useful. Legislation may be a way to solve that problem, but we've long left discussing the URL bar at that point. Edit: Also I genuinely don't think collecting end-user data is the primary goal of the Chrome team with this…

So how is typing into the text field a full URL like 'example.com' and getting a search result better for the user than going to the damn url that was entered? If I was actually wanting to search for information about the URL provided, then the result is expected. However, if I just want to go to the damn url, it is not useful at all. Now, in this unified input that you seem complacent with, how do I avoid the step o…

I've said several times I agree with your discomfort with the idea, so please chill out a bit :)

Also, I didn't say google wants to kill the URL bar. I said google wants to kill the URL. So you wouldn't type in "example.com", you would do something else to get to whatever content you wanted from what used to be called "example.com".

I don't know what the replacement for URLs will be, and it seems neither does Google (yet), but I'm at least open to the idea that there may be a better idea.

Some further reading:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/09/google-wants-to-get-...

https://www.wired.com/story/google-wants-to-kill-the-url/

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

#154

Post by sseagull »

pkulak wrote: post #81
3np wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm computer illiterate, I can't learn any of this fancy tech stuff. This learned helplessness scares me a bit. It's like the willingness to comprehend stops at "tap". "What are you talking about, 'steering wheel'?! I'm not a greasemonkey, are you talking about the thing I turn to make the car turn?" Not knowing is one thing, refusing to take in any new knowledge is another.

It feels to me like they're scared to try, because they still might not get it, and then what does that say about them? But dammit, if my relatives just tried, even a little bit, things would be so much better.

They are also afraid of breaking things, which isn't entirely unreasonable.

I think we've all had relatives do something and then be unable to "get it back". Task bars deleted, icons deleted, etc.

So they don't try to venture too far out because past experiences make everything seem fragile.

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

#155

Post by motoboi »

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…

I painstakingly developed a personal script for how to teach people how to split a screen between two chrome tabs.

This is amazingly and surprisingly difficult thing to explain over the phone to “normal” (born before computers were prevalent) people.

Basically I got it divided in two groups: those who have used internet for the first time after 18 years old (hardest group. Have to explain in terms of geometrical figures, like lines and rectangles on top of the screen, where in this rectangle is a good place to click and how to drag, and what a successful drag looks like), and the others (those I can explain how to “drag a tab”, because they already know what a tab is).

The address bar is more easy, I refer to it as the place where you type the site where you want to go (but very often people never type addresses, they open google and start from there, always).

This got me into thinking about getting old, more than once. How can I prevent this to myself (being totally confused and out of touch with current technology when I get older).

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

#156

Post by TeMPOraL »

coldpie wrote: post #100
dylan604 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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

> at the same time I find anecdotes like this comment elsewhere in this thread[1] compelling

I don't. As I replied to that post directly, the URL bar is not like the choke lever on a car, but more like the steering wheel or navigation input. It's the UI element that is used to communicate user's goals to the machine - not some incidental control of a subsystem that gets automated away.

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

#157

Post by pitaj »

frosted-flakes wrote: post #130
soylentcola wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just stopped bothering when it got harder to access the filter/drain and I moved to the city where I park on the street. I'm much less interested in farting around under the car, getting messy, and spending a half hour or more to drain the oil, replace the filter, and refill. At some point I just decided it was worth the extra cost to be in and out quickly. And honestly, when you add up the cost of replacement filt…

Top-side filters and oil extraction pumps make oil changes almost effortless. The biggest problem for me is disposing of the oil. There are several vehicles in my family, and the old oil just collects in jugs by the garage door. The nearest hazardous waste centre at the landfill will only accept two jugs at a time, and they won't take 5 gallon buckets at all. They will not accept 10 jugs (<2 years' worth), let alone…

Often parts stored like AutoZone, O'Reilly's etc accept waste oil.

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

#158

Post by bantunes »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #127

Am I the only one who likes the search/URL bar combined? It makes it easy to search, it searches through your bookmarks as well (giving bookmarks some priority), and auto-fills frequent website URLs quickly.

You're not in the percentage of users that has a problem with it (that I'd put in the high 70s or 80s).

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

#159

Post by klyrs »

cletus wrote: post #145

This is a good example of making the mistake of conflating implementation details and user interface design. Firefox always had two boxes: URL bar and search. One of the big changes Chrome made when it was born was to have the Omnibar, being of course one bar that does both. If you think about this as an engineer, Firefox's design decision makes sense. You don't want to accidentally leak things to a search engine. UR…

Firefox did away with the search bar a long time ago. For a while, it was possible to bring it back through about:config, but I don't think it's possible to make the url bar a clean url bar anymore (this is an invitation for corrections). It's annoying because I navigate to pages via URLs, and all I don't want to send those to a search engine for "suggestions" (though, a locally-indexed history is nice). All too often, I'll type in a url and it will send that to a search engine, and then the page I wanted to go to is buried under ads. Useless. Especially now that Firefox is moving to paid ads in the "url" bar... blech.

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

#160

Post by MauranKilom »

cletus wrote: post #145

This is a good example of making the mistake of conflating implementation details and user interface design. Firefox always had two boxes: URL bar and search. One of the big changes Chrome made when it was born was to have the Omnibar, being of course one bar that does both. If you think about this as an engineer, Firefox's design decision makes sense. You don't want to accidentally leak things to a search engine. UR…

On the other hand, I despise this exact change in Firefox. When I want to search, I use the search bar. When I want to enter an address, I use the address bar. I have a clear picture of what I want to do, and it is annoying to no end if the browser confuses one for the other. For example, by auto-completing a search term to a URL instead (see: computers don't know what users want). That's why I personally prefer the ability to make that choice explicitly.

I get it, I'm not the kind of user this article is about. And maybe I'm just insufficiently exposed to the other paradigm to have become "fluent" in it. But I just wanted to point out that there definitely are users whose mental model differentiates search terms and URLs.

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