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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

#211

Post by tharkun__ »

hk1337 wrote: post #183
MauranKilom wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Firefox did away with the search bar a long time ago. For a while, it was possible to bring it back through about:config The search bar still exists in Firefox if you want it to btw. I use it daily.

Interesting. I didn't know you could add the search bar but when you do, the address bar still says "Search with or enter address".

Also see sibling. I use Firefox daily and I have both a search bar that I use when I really want to search and I also don't see any "Search" stuff in my address bar. When I type "n" I can hit enter because it finds news.ycombinator.com in my history. All the next results are other things from my history which have an n in it.

I have browser.urlbar.showSearchSuggestionsFirst=false

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

#212

Post by taxicabjesus »

Nalta wrote: post #196
everdrive wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Users don't have the mental model to differentiate search terms and a URL. I don't think good software always aims for the lowest common denominator. It's not an unequivocal good that users' lack of education is catered to. Infantilizing users makes them more dependent on services, and less able to navigate the internet.

I feel like this is the same argument as "kids these days don't know anyone's phone number!" If it works it works

> "kids these days don't know anyone's phone number!" If it works it works

My passenger had my phone number memorized. I went to visit him when he called me from jail. I used his gmail password to get his contacts' phone numbers to try to get someone else to bail him out, but it was only $300. After a few days I paid up to bail him out. He missed his next court date. I went to the bail revocation hearing a couple months later, and got $200 of that $300 back (iirc).

I make an effort to regularly exercise my mental phonebook, on his account.

Who are your lifelines? - https://www.taxiwars.org/p/who-are-your-lifelines.html

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

#213

Post by iforgotpassword »

Nalta wrote: post #196
everdrive wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Users don't have the mental model to differentiate search terms and a URL. I don't think good software always aims for the lowest common denominator. It's not an unequivocal good that users' lack of education is catered to. Infantilizing users makes them more dependent on services, and less able to navigate the internet.

I feel like this is the same argument as "kids these days don't know anyone's phone number!" If it works it works

Phone numbers are stored in your phone's contacts app, a tool that does the remembering for you. Making an input box do two different things and then adding a heuristic to guess what the user wants might be handy, but can go wrong. And then, as the linked post demonstrates, users get used to that and treat every input box as if it can do both of these things. It's a race to the bottom. Now your users "got stupider" and you need to come up with even more stuff behind the scenes to fix it.

Nobody ever questioned that you have to learn driving a car. How to handle it, what would break it, traffic rules etc. Why don't we demand that cars become so smart that a 16yo can just buy one, jump on all the pedals and turn all knobs and be a safe while doing so because the car will prevent anything bad from happening? We somehow accept that driving a car is something non-trivial that has to be learned, has certain rules that need to be followed, etc.

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

#214

Post by II2II »

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…

I am going to disagree since I believe that people should have a basic knowledge of the tools they are using. I am not saying that the bar should be particularly high, but being able to differentiate where something is and searching for something is a realistic expectation.

That being said, I think developers have made some things more difficult to understand than they should be. While people understand what an address is, calling it a URL adds an extra layer to learn (even if it is just terminology). URLs would also be easier to understand if they were more consistent from the end user's perspective, much like someone's mailing address, rather than an engineer's perspective.

I would also argue that the omnibar is designed from the engineer's perspective rather than the end user's perspective. The engineer said something to the effect of, "we can differentiate an address from a search query based upon the format of the input". It sounds good on paper. It sounds like it makes things easier for the user. Yet all that it really accomplishes is creating confusion for the end user since it fails to differentiate two concepts.

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

#215

Post by gnabgib »

wartijn_ wrote: post #186
klyrs wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My mistake, I meant to say url bar. Last time I tried this, the url bar had all the functionality of the search bar, which misses the point. Am I remembering wrong?

The settings screen has the option "show search in address bar results". You can turn that off.

It's the perfect setup really, you can turn it off, but if you want it you can type "? " into the address bar and it'll go to default search - or use one of your engine short codes as the first word "@google hackernews"

about:config -> keyword.enabled -> false (to stop sending possible search terms automatically to your default search engine, this includes when you type a URL firefox mistakes for a search term)

about:config -> browser.fixup.alternate.enabled -> false (to stop firefox trying a DNS lookup/connection with the term you typed with www. before, .com after)

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

#216

Post by jkfdrsak »

admax88qqq wrote: post #175
saba2008 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it confuses and pushes users toward wrong mental model of surrounding world.

Why is their mental model wrong? Perhaps the model of having separate url vs search boxes is wrong.

If these people read a bad news story about google, they will not know how to stop using google for any and all web access. A discerning consumer often opts to alter their product use under similar circumstances. They are dependent on a middleman because their understanding of the boxes they type things into does not reflect reality. This is what it means for a mental model to be "wrong".

The realized model of having two separate boxes could only ever be "wrong" in a moral or aesthetic sense. This is not the case for mental models, which are incorrect when they do not correspond to reality.

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

#217

Post by CmdrKrool »

It's desperately out of fashion now, but remember having one's toolbar in the mode of "icons and text"? Giving you both the buttons, and a little label under each like "New", "Open", "Save", etc. Why not just have that in this case, ie. a little "URL" label under the address bar and a "Search" label under the other one. Even if a phrase like "URL" is jargon to a newbie, once they've seen it up there for long enough in context with actual URLs they'll pick up a feel for it. That's how straightforward user education used to work. We all had to be shown and told, that this thing is called this, and that thing is called that, at some point. Finally when these aids are no longer needed, and one cares to shave a few pixels off their toolbar, they just right-click -> "Show icons only", and carry on in new-found independence and style. How did this simple sequence of learning get so deprecated.

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

#218

Post by generj »

admax88qqq wrote: post #175
saba2008 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it confuses and pushes users toward wrong mental model of surrounding world.

Why is their mental model wrong? Perhaps the model of having separate url vs search boxes is wrong.

The model is wrong because it doesn’t reflect reality. URLs and web search are fundamentally different types of items.

All models are wrong, some are useful. We are debating how useful this model is.

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

#219

Post by conductr »

sseagull wrote: post #154
pkulak wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's true. What I don't get is the reluctance to seek out learning opportunities. They won't watch a video, attend a class, read a book, none of that. It's like picking up a hobby if you're computer illiterate. They spend all the money on the device and expect what exactly? Yet if they bought a DSLR they would know it's a hobby and they need to learn a thing or two. They'd invest in learning like people do with any hobby.

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

#220

Post by godshatter »

itchyjunk wrote: post #83
shadowgovt wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 guess we live several abstraction layer away from "reality" anyways. So saying people should learn one abstraction and not the other isn't justified in and off itself. So if typing in random box leads to the same result as typing in some specific box, fine and well?

Except that combining them causes the side effect of sending everything to a third party, rather than just what they are willing to give them. Does the search provider really need to know what url you wanted to go to? Especially given that most of them are greedily saving that information in order to better convince you to buy something you don't want or need at the behest of someone else.

Maybe instead of "which box should they type into" we should be asking why the url interface is a simple text box to begin with.

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