Jakob Nielsen's latest column: Employee Directory Search: Resolving Conflicting Usability Guidelines:
As we have seen in testing intranets, using one search to find documents from the document repository and another search to find answers in the knowledge base is a big problem for users. Most people won't know which is which, and they'll waste much time trying to puzzle out the difference. But, when you want to find Mary's phone number, you don't think of it as a document retrieval operation. You think of it as looking up Mary in the employee list. For both needs, the action to take is clear, so users have only one command to consider in each case. Exactly the outcome the simplicity principle aims to achieve.
I think Jakob got this one wrong. It's not an either-or case. You don't have to choose between offering a single search box for everything and a specialized directory search. I'd make the main search box (shown on every intranet page) search both documents and people. Then, I'd make a link to a directory search interface. This box can search the very same directory that the main search does. I bet people figure out real quick that they can get people results from the main interface. This will become even more natural when people start to see people displayed in other search contexts, like expertise location.
UPDATE: Christina Wodke wrote an interesting response to Nielsen's article, mostly focusing on the concept of usabiity "guidelines." To quote: "my point is that design matters, and guidelines are not to be relied on solely." Anyway, it's worth reading.
Posted by Karl
February 24, 2003 01:19 PM