On Wednesday next week (17th Feb) I’ll be presenting a half day course called Search Usability, courtesy of CILIP and the UKeIG in particular. This course is new in two ways:
- it’s designed exclusively for online presentation
- it combines insights from two of my previous courses: Designing the Search Experience and Search Usability: Filters and Facets
I did give some thought to the title. In particular, I’m aware that the term ‘usability’ has fallen out of favour in recent years, partly due to its connotations (in my view) as being a ‘nice to have’ feature or attribute. Instead, I prefer to frame UX in terms of ‘fitness for purpose’ or simply ‘good design’: few would argue that those criteria are essential to any successful product or service. Moreover, they are central to the design of effective search experiences, and that’s what this course is all about.
I did also consider ‘Designing the Search Experience’, but I’ve rather beaten that title into submission in recent years, and besides, the course includes insights from UX research as well as UX design, so if you take that title too literally you may incorrectly conclude that the course was aimed exclusively at designers (or individuals with such aspirations). Maybe I’m over-thinking this, but ‘Search Usability’, although it’s a bit 1990s IMHO, feels more inclusive.
Since this is the inaugural presentation of this course, its likely that we will need some flexibility in approach and content. For that reason I have included extra activities which I don’t expect to need on the day, but they are there just in case.
A final update: we just closed registrations for this presentation as we are now fully booked. But if there’s enough demand, we’ll do another presentation later in the year.
For further details and registration, see the UKeIG event page. In the meantime, I’ve appended further details below.
Hope to see you there!
Overview
Search is not just a box and ten blue links. Search is a journey: an exploration where what we encounter changes what we seek. But to guide people along this journey, we must understand both the art and science of designing search experiences.
This course explores the fundamental concepts and principles of User-Centred Design for information search and discovery and demonstrates how to apply them to a range of practical contexts. Participants will learn how to differentiate between various types of information-seeking behaviour, develop an understanding of key dimensions within the search user experience, and discover how to apply UI design principles to commercial search applications. The session includes an opportunity to apply these skills to a range of practical design challenges.
- Models of human information-seeking behaviour
- Principles and practices of user-centred design
- Key dimensions of the search experience
- UX design patterns and resources.
- Learn how to differentiate various types of information-seeking behaviour and how they apply to different search contexts
- Understand the fundamental principles of user-centred design and how they apply to search user interfaces
- Learn how to apply UI design concepts and principles in designing and evaluating search interfaces
- Gain experience in applying UX design patterns and resources to practical design challenges.
- Intranet/web managers, information architects and search specialists
- Developers and managers of search projects
- Anyone who has implemented or is planning to implement a search solution and wants to maximise the usability and effectiveness of their investment.
Tony Russell-Rose works at the interface between information retrieval research and user experience practice in navigating complex information environments. He is co-author of Designing the Search Experience: the Information Architecture of Discovery (Morgan Kaufman 2013) a classic text that grounds the search user experience in how people actually go about information seeking, and how they navigate and make sense of information environments. Tony has over 20 years of experience in this domain, including as Manager of User Experience at search company Endeca, technical lead at Reuters, specialising in advanced user interfaces for information access and search and as R&D manager at Canon Research Centre Europe, where he led a team developing next generation information access products and services.
Tony is currently Senior Lecturer in Computer Science at Goldsmiths, University of London, and Royal Academy of Engineering Visiting Professor of Cognitive Computing at Essex University. He is also Director of UXLabs, a research and design consultancy specialising in complex search and information access applications. Most recently he is founder of 2Dsearch, a start-up applying AI, NLP and data visualisation to create the next generation of professional search tools, with applications in legal research, patent search, evidence synthesis and recruitment/sourcing.
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