Nielsen: users so search-reliant it undermines their problem-solving abilities | Hacker News Reader

Nielsen: users so search-reliant it undermines their problem-solving abilities

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34 pointsadnam12 comments

Whoever submitted this misinterpreted the results in the headline, but they are interesting nonetheless.

Basically it boils down to this: the average person overwhelmingly sucks at Google searching.

The headline was taken directly from the article: "today, many users are so reliant on search that it's undermining their problem-solving abilities".

This is more about people not knowing how to use advanced search techniques to solve problems than it is about people being reliant on search and their problem-solving skills suffering as a result.

Indeed, the title is misleading. The problem-solving abilities referenced in the title are those of solving the problem of finding what you want, not general problem-solving abilities.

It was taken directly from the article -- "today, many users are so reliant on search that it's undermining their problem-solving abilities" -- and made to fit in 80 characters.

This article begs the question "Why do people need advanced search skills when using a SERP?".

If the single search box "worked", the search would provide the results the user wanted without having to use arcane search techniques.

The expectation for a user presented with the single search box is for simplicity and accuracy.

I would bet that there are very few SERP "power users" that know all the ways to manipulate the searches.

Going away from the single search box or providing hard links for filtering results might be a way around this. I imagine that there are many bright minds working on this issue.

> If the single search box "worked", the search would provide the results the user wanted without having to use arcane search techniques.

What if my definition of "works" includes the ability to use "arcane" search techniques? For example, I wish I could use quotes around my search terms everywhere, to get exact matches. Google now often insists that I need stemming applied in such queries, which I find to be the opposite of "works".

Your point is right on, one size does not fit all. One searcher's "works" is another's "fails". And highlights how complex the issue is, some people are the "feeling lucky" types and others are the I want to drill in and make sure I am getting what I wanted. The question may be, Are the "feeling lucky" types getting lucky?

We've seen this on our site, which is heavily search focused. Despite having an "advanced" search menu right next to the default search bar in our header, essentially no users take advantage of it (and we're dropping it as a result.)

Faceted search is clearly being used by people on sites like Yelp and Amazon but they might not realize it (and might not think of it as "advanced search".) Unfortunately it's harder to add faceted search to a general purpose, free-text search site like Google, so users may not take advantage of it as readily when doing those kinds of searches.

Does it undermine problem-solving skills or expose a lack of them? Probably a little of each. If people aren't using advanced search, the search engines probably aren't helping by burying it and showing a one-textbox start page. But if someone doesn't understand that not every web page is equally legitimate or authoritative, it's a failing that's more fundamental.

the tone, at least, seems to assume that if people didn't use search engines they would do better. am i reading it wrong? i don't see the argument for that at all - if you asked someone what was the most populous city in the world, and they didn't have google handy, i think they would simply guess...

love how this comes out while http://agoogleaday.com is around

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