Search is no place to get creative

Creative people are good at coming up with original ideas. Also when they’re working on a website. That’s perfectly fine of course, provided they don’t get too creative…

The screenshot below is from a webbuilder’s site. Apparently somebody there thought the standard search feature was in desperate need of an update. The result? A search feature that is unusable for the average surfer.

Screenshot 1

“Ah, a link to the search feature. Or is it?”

Screenshot 2

“Oops, it’s a faulty link… No, wait a minute… What’s that little white line doing there?”

Screenshot 3

“You can type on the line. That’s unexpected. But wait a minute, where’s the ‘Search’ button? Hmm, I guess I’ll just press ‘Enter’?”  

Screenshot 4

“Yes, it is a real search feature. Hmm, quite complicated…”

Did you get it?

Did you immediately catch on to how this search feature works? If you did: congratulations. You didn’t? Not to worry. I showed it during a usability workshop to ten people, all professionally involved in the internet. None of them had a clue. None of them.

Keep search simple

A plain white type-in field of at least 25 characters long and a simple button that says ‘Search’ is something everybody recognizes and knows how to use.

Read more articles about search, Usability.