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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

#231

Post by dylan604 »

coldpie wrote: post #198
dylan604 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> please don't nit-pick it to pieces. that's not how this works. if you don't wont opinions, don't post an idea to the internet. you've just replaced a working DNS system with a DNS system based on best guess or worse requiring a small biz to register with multiple DNS like systems. What happens when competitor beats you to those multiple registration points? >But google isn't proposing that... yet :) Why in the worl…

> you've just replaced a working DNS system with a DNS system based on best guess or worse requiring a small biz to register with multiple DNS like systems Yes, I said it's a really dumb idea. Stop wasting your time nit-picking it :) It was an example of how you could create an open, keywords-based system without requiring Google as an intermediary. > Why in the world would you think that google would do anything tha…

I'm glad that you put so much faith in Google, but they get no trust from me. Video and Image codecs are nowhere near the samething as web traffic where they can gather data. Of course G wants a faster JS engine. Everything they do is hidden/obfuscated with in that code. Making an engine that is fast enough so they can track mouse movements to generate heat maps and what ever other nefarious JS tracking they are doing/wanting to do in a way that doesn't enfuriate the user is just self centered. The fact that you can use it to do other things is just collateral damage.

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

#232

Post by elzbardico »

I believe that a lot of those mistakes are also caused by flat designs. Sometimes is very difficult to visually see the difference between the page and browser UI.

Enable compact layout on Safari and Open Hacker News. What is HN? What is Chrome? It all looks the friggin' same. No clear hints other than spacing and position.

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

#233

Post by samsolomon »

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…

This is is an unpopular opinion on a place like Hacker News, but it is correct.

Users want access to the information they are looking for as quickly and frictionlessly as possible—the omni bar does just that.

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

#234

Post by TeMPOraL »

cameronh90 wrote: post #226
TeMPOraL wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Really? I don't believe there exists a task I theoretically could perform if I knew the steps, that I would be unable to do if those steps were being explained to me by an expert. Even if it was gardening or cooking (two are…

There are some tasks that require finesse, like hovering a helicopter, riding a bicycle or even balancing a clutch. Most people can't do those initially no matter how much an expert explains it - until they build up the muscle memory. Cooking and gardening are like that but to a much lesser extent. Of course typing into a URL bar is nothing like that.

Yup, I've explicitly excluded such tasks from consideration (perhaps not clearly enough). My claim was only about tasks that don't require tacit knowledge or experience in addition to detailed enough step-by-step instructions.

With references to gardening, I meant stuff like e.g. how to correctly replant a flower. I have no first clue how to do it, but I'm confident I could do it successfully if I had a gardener guiding me through the process step by step.

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

#236

Post by TeMPOraL »

unsui wrote: post #230
II2II wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 addre…

> believe that people should have a basic knowledge of the tools they are using The whole point of intuitive design is to realize that you shouldn't make your users "think", insofar as making effortful cognition (i.e., Kahneman's "Type 2" thinking). Good design should leverage built-in assumptions of how the world, per users' intuitive mental models, to create affordances that guide users to the desired interaction a…

> The whole point of intuitive design is to realize that you shouldn't make your users "think", insofar as making effortful cognition (i.e., Kahneman's "Type 2" thinking).

Defined like this, this makes "intuitive design" a very destructive trend.

There's only so far you can go trying to "leverage built-in assumptions of how the world, per users' intuitive mental models". Computing world is not like everyday experience in many important ways, and trying to pretend it is only burdens the user with inconsistent mental models that don't allow them to navigate and grow their intuition.

The way I see it, it is the failure of UX design that it tries to hide the nature of computers - instead of making it apparent, so that the users can learn and internalize the important axioms of this different world. Intuition needs to be calibrated to the underlying reality for it to be useful.

> Yes, the learning curve is (arguably) minimal; that's not the point. It's that there is a learning curve at all.

There's few things in the world that have no learning curve. Almost everything is learned. Almost everything that's important in life is learned either through direct training, or picked up over time from exposure. This is where every UX designer inventing their own "simplifying" abstractions is hurting users: nobody is training them, but software is so inconsistent nowadays that they don't get to learn from exposure either.

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

#237

Post by notatoad »

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…

>Here's another example of this: IIRC one of the most frequently searched terms on Google is "facebook".

one of the other most frequently searched terms on google is "google", because people don't understand that the chrome omnibox performs a google search, and they want to go to google to perform a search from a dedicated "search" box rather than a URL input - essentially, they want what the firefox UI gave them.

if you're trying to draw any conclusions about user preferences from user behaviour, you have to accept that you're going to be wrong about a significant portion of your users. one workflow might be "better" for some portion of your users, but it won't mesh with the mental model of some other portion of your users. different groups will form different expectations and habits, and a single UI will not completely satisfy the expectations of every group.

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

#238

Post by withinboredom »

taxicabjesus wrote: post #212
Nalta wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mon…

That story reminds me of this homeless guy I helped out one night. He was wearing a suit, which is why I believed him, actually. He said he was a pilot, who just moved into a house but locked himself out with his wallet inside. So he attempted to break into his own house. The neighbors called the cops and he was arrested. Now he was “homeless” until he got things sorted out. I ran into him a few days later, he taught me how to fly and became a friend that I still email from time to time.

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

#239

Post by asdff »

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 can't think of any advantage myself to having these things be discrete boxes, and I know what a search term and a URL is (as I'm sure most users do, give them some credit here). Corner cases rarely happen and if I think something might look like a url but is a search term, you can prepend the term with whitespace. Ultimately having them not be discrete boxes means I can see more of the url before it folds, which I prefer.

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

#240

Post by sseagull »

darkerside wrote: post #178
sseagull wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Users don't have the mental model to differentiate search terms and a URL Why don't they? This is a somewhat serious question. Part of it, in my opinion, is we are moving too fast, and giving up on users to quickly. With enough education, people will understand. But enough education = at least a generation or two, introducing it in schools at a young age, etc. But we just threw our hands up and said "oh well, they…

But it's not phone number vs phone book. It's phone number vs automated operator that will connect you where you are trying to go. I am technical and I often just search instead of URL just because it requires less precision. Google is just DNS with a few extra steps.

Ok, it's going to find a book on the shelf by its author/title or dewey decimal number, vs. looking it up in the card catalog by subject (and then going to the shelf).

That should appeal to the older crowd.

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