Relevance for the masses

Richard Morgan

Client Services and Support Manager

Funnelback UK

Technology and technique

Technology and technique

The tools we use to focus on the user rather than the technology…

…are also a technology.

Relevance is still king

“We just want the stuff”

“Our search is rubbish”

“The search should return relevant results”

Fine tuning with anecdotes

Traditionally, fine tuning of search has been done by educated guessing.

Some search problems

Some search solutions

How to talk about relevance

What ideas can we borrow from:

Web design?

Agile project management?

The search master’s lament

“There is no time for search.”

Someone has to do some work

The most effective way of improving search relevance long-term is to distribute that task among the searchers.

But how?

The real value of anecdotes

Stakeholder interviews, usability testing, survey feedback are ways of increasing constructive engagement.

Anecdotes can reveal incentives as well as patterns.

Creating metrics

Evidence-based metrics turn ad-hoc engagement into a framework for engagement.

But softer metrics are hard to come by.

Relevance and context

Different search results are relevant to different people.

Using personas.

Relevance for the masses

The techniques for improving relevance are now about empowering the searchers.