Problem statement

Our customers do not have the ability to search within any of our apps.

Internal UX research

I reached out to our UX research team to check for any prior research. Here are their key takeaways.

Not all applications (or users) are impacted to the same degree

Administration, on-boarding, dashboard & reporting and customer support have probably the greatest need
Task-oriented users: Users who visit the site with a specific task in mind have expressed disappointment when they can't efficiently complete their task without a search function

Limited accessibility: Users who rely on keyboard navigation or screen readers have found it time consuming to explore a application thoroughly without a search function
Comparison to competitors: Users have compared our applications to our competitors that offer search functionality, noting that those websites provide a more convenient experience
Perceived lack of quality: Some users have associated the absence of a search feature with a lack of effort or investment in improving the user experience
Negative perception: Lack of search functionality might be seen as outdated or less user-friendly, potentially contributing to an overall negative perception of the bank

With over 90 applications within the commercial bank, what are the known use cases?

I consulted with our team's product owner to identify which apps are most likely to benefit from a search component. After reviewing each app, here are my conclusions.

Global search
Administration — search for a user (post login)
Reports & Insights (Dashboards) — business intelligence and data visualization
On-boarding
Help and support
Inline search — search inside a data table or a flow

What do our stakeholders think?

I conducted interviews with our Pioneer team partners, including developers, content strategists, accessibility experts, and app team designers and product owners from outside our immediate team. Below is a summary, but please refer to the diagram for complete details.

App team design manager

Offer the user two distinct pathways for search.
- Go directly to a result
- Go to a landing page, then filter and sort or create a new search

App team designers

Pre search filtering (scoped search) — can we offer this functionality because I think it would be useful because these customers are power users?

Development/technology leader

We have been aware of this need and have the capacity to move forward with development.

Strategy/Content

Metadata — will each journey (app) team be in charge of tagging content, removing duplicates insuring proper schema markup?

Accessibility

Screen readers — we need to make sure we continue to support screen readers and tag content appropriately.

Product owners

Suggest a simple off the shelf solution.

stakeholder interview — all comments

Search flow

As result of my partner dicusssions I determined we needed two search flows — ability to go to a direct result and a landing page of results.

Revision of the problem statement

Our customers need to quickly and confidently search for content in order to…

Be more productive
Reduce friction
Increase engagement
Decrease support calls
Onboard faster

Partner recommendations

General

Minimum viable product (MVP): Start with a light implementation (administration/search for a user), then add increased functionality over time (global search)
Global search: Suggest we implement a Google pattern because our customers are already familiar with that functionality
Ability for the user to go to a direct search result or landing page
Search should be able to access data from older databases

Content — Metadata

Users should be able to search across all content types
We must define the search categories
Optimize content for keywords
Ensure content is properly structured using standard HTML tags to mark up headings, paragraphs, lists, and other content elements
Descriptive URLs that include keywords related to the page's content
Remove duplicate content
Add descriptive meta information; title tags and meta descriptions to each page

Before adding search to your app, each team should

Conduct user research: Gain insights into how users are searching on your app and identify any issues that need to be addressed
Iteration and Analysis: After the study, analyze the collected data to identify patterns and trends. Look for areas of improvement, such as confusing UI elements, misleading search results, or slow performance
Validation and Iteration: If possible, implement the recommended changes and conduct follow-up usability testing to validate the improvements. This iterative process helps ensure that the changes have a positive impact on the user experience
Continuous Monitoring: Regularly monitor and gather user feedback even after implementing improvements. This ongoing process helps maintain the quality of the search functionality and address any emerging issues

Open questions

Will each team will maintain their own database?
Will the scope of search be limited to specific pages, sections of the site, or will it include all content?
Integration with existing systems: Should app teams be able to access data from other databases?
Will there be a impact on website speed or the need for additional server resources?

In conclusion, here are answers to the questions posed at the start of this sprint

Is the absence of a search feature a genuine issue for our users, or are we addressing a problem that may not exist?

The lack of a search component does affect the usability of our apps, however not all apps or users are affected to the same degree

With over 90 applications within the commercial bank, what are the known use cases?

Global search, administration, on-boarding, reports & insights, help and support, account lookup, inline search (search within a data table or flow)

What do our stakeholders think?

Full approval to move forward with reservations from our content partners

What problems do we need to overcome?

Do we have sufficient resources for to streamline our metadata?

Is our team aligned on the objective?

We are aligned, and I will create sketches of some examples during the second sprint.

Deliveries for this sprint

Now that our team is aligned on a set of recommendations for developing a search component, in this sprint I will take the following actions:

What are search best practices?
How have our competitors solved this problem?
And, I will wireframe two common flows frequently used at the bank

Search best practice

Use autocomplete (keyword suggestions)
Differentiate between a typed query and the suggested term
The user should have the option to either go directly to a search result or navigate to a landing page where they can filter and sort the results
When the user chooses to narrow the search (scope or filter) state the scope on the results page
Scoped search while valuable, can cause issues if users forget to reset the filter to "ALL" for subsequent searches
Global search — utilize a full search box positioned in the header to allow users to search across all content
Show a diverse set of results by including a scope in search suggestions
Rentlessly focus on the quality of top 3 results for top 100 queries
Avoid typos, because users don’t need to type out the entire query themselves

Search definitions

Competitive landscape

I carried out a competitive and comparative analysis to identify which search features are being commonly utilized.

I concluded

Advanced search (initial search with filtering options) is seldom used. This observation seems to support the notion that advanced search features often leads users into complications.
It's advisable to provide users with a straightforward search option that directs them to a landing page where they can further refine their search through filtering.

Search features, Competitive landscape

Wireframe exercises

Search for an account in the middle of a flow

Global search wireframe

Conclusion

Based on this discovery, the team has reached a consensus that developing a search component would deliver substantial value for both our design partners and customers.

However, the biggest barrier to success is ensuring that the metadata is properly tagged.

Update for 2024

I continue to stay informed on search best practices and keep up with any new developments in the field.

Autocomplete is much more than keyword suggestions

Reassures users they are on the right path
Corrects for mispellings
Categorizes or scopes the results
Use type-ahead suggestions for appending

More best practices for autocomplete

Show suggestions on focus to make users notice, for example related to recent searches, trending searches
Limit suggestions to about ten
Show scoped keyword suggestions — ratings, products, support, etc
Show the number of matches for each scope

Landing page and filtering

Focus on the quality of the top three results
When filters appear in the sidebar they cause layout shifts so users have to refocus everytime they use a filter