Mozillians/Phonebook/Search

A search box is a search box, and no matter how meticulous we’ve designed it, users are going to put whatever they want into it. Mozillians is a “phonebook”, so this problem is not apparent in its fullest form. We'll pivot around the browsing functionality as a way to primarily navigate and let Search be tied to looking for terms the App does not make readily obvious to the user.

Functional Principles

Search should be done confidently. We do not want users to search for something that’s not in our vocabulary list and find nothing. Help them:

• Complete queries
• Correct errors
• Provide tools to facet search

Search

Guided start page

• Have a search box, but have a list of the top 15-20 groups on the app
• Include introductory text, "Here are a few groups to get you started"

Controlled Vocabulary Search

• Let’s clarify that groups are not people’s name (or other kinds of information) by making it visually distinct in the search box
• When a user starts typing a group name, he will see a list of possible groups and be able to select from it

Tailored Answers

• All search result should be helpful, even if they lead to an empty search result page

Suggestions

• Synonyms
• Search Suggestions Example

Filters

• Allow user to display vouched users, non-vouched users, or both
• Display related groups. For example, "Firefox" displays all related synonyms or categories