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

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

States

Logged In

Mock-Up

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"
When user try to search for general keywords like “Help” or “Contribute”, they may mean “How do I get started with helping?” The search result should offer names of stewards. Write: “here are some people who you can contact to start getting Involved with Mozilla”

Group Results

Display related groups. For example, "Firefox" displays all related synonyms or categories

Individual Results

General Mock-Up

404 Results

Mock-up

When search query is too general or return too many results to be helpful, offer help

Suggestions

On Search

- When user search for “firefox”, say “do you mean ‘firefox mobile’, ‘fx-team’?”
- When user search for “mozilla”, say “do you mean ‘moco’, ‘mozilla labs’?”
- When user search for common terms for group, change the search query to the actual group name that people uses. Websites should be WebDev, Support > SUMO, Mozillians > Engagement, Feedbacks > be Input, BrowserID & Persona > Identity, theme & extension > Addons

Tools

Allow user to display vouched users, non-vouched users, or both
Allow the user to sort users alphabetically via their full names