Designing the Search Experience: The Information Architecture of Discovery

Search is not just a box and ten blue links. Search is a journey: an exploration where what we encounter along the way changes what we seek. But in order to guide people along this journey, designers must understand both the art and science of search. In Designing the Search Experience, authors Tony Russell-Rose and Tyler Tate weave together the theories of information seeking with the practice of user interface design.

• Understand how people search, and how the concepts of information seeking, information foraging, and sensemaking underpin the search process.
• Apply the principles of user-centered design to the search box, search results, faceted navigation, mobile interfaces, social search, and much more.
• Design the cross-channel search experiences of tomorrow that span desktop, tablet, mobile, and other devices.

About the Authors

Tony Russell-Rose is director of UXLabs, a UX research and design consultancy specializing in complex search and information access applications. Before founding UXLabs, he was Manager of User Experience at Endeca and editor of the Endeca UI Design Pattern Library, an online resource dedicated to best practice in the design of search and discovery experiences. Prior to this, he was technical lead at Reuters, specializing in advanced user interfaces for information access and search. And before Reuters, he was R&D manager at Canon Research Centre Europe, where he led a team developing next generation information access products and services. Earlier professional experience includes a Royal Academy of Engineering fellowship at HP Labs working on speech UIs for mobile devices and a Short-Term Research Fellowship at BT Labs working on intelligent agents for information retrieval.

His academic qualifications include a PhD in human–computer interaction, an MSc in cognitive psychology, and a first degree in engineering, majoring in human factors. He also holds the position of Honorary Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Interactive Systems Research, City University, London.

He is currently vice-chair of the BCS Information Retrieval group and chair of the IEHF Human–Computer Interaction group.

Tyler Tate is the cofounder of TwigKit, a London-based software company that provides tools for rapidly building data-driven applications. At TwigKit he has helped numerous government, Fortune 500, and other large organizations achieve superb search experiences. Prior to specializing in search, Tyler lead design at Nutshell CRM, designed an enterprise content management system, ran a small design studio, and taught a university course on web design.

Tyler has written articles for publications such as A List Apart, Boxes & Arrows, UX Magazine, Johnny Holland, UX Matters, and Smashing Magazine. He also organizes the Enterprise Search London meetup, and has created popular CSS frameworks such as the Semantic Grid System.