Google by default

I'm sure we've all witnessed on how common it is for a user-experience to begin at Google these days, even when the user has a known destination/item.

I do it myself. For instance, say I want to look up 'Brighton' on Wikipedia, I find the most efficient method of getting there to type 'wikipedia brighton' into my browser's in-built google search. This is all based on the assumption that this will be the first result (it normally is) and therefore the quickest way for me to achieve my goal.

This is certainly borne-out in the research I'm doing at the moment. In some cases, this behaviour seems so habitual that users will take this route, even when it isn't the most efficient method of reaching their goal.

My question is, does anyone know if there's a term for this kind of behaviour?

As an aside, it's interesting how advertising is attempting to capitalise on this. This film poster ( http://bit.ly/b1p5 ) encourages people to google 'Mother Lay-By' rather than displaying the film's URL. What's even better is that it doesn't work!

James, this phenomena is exceedingly common. Termed navigational queries, or more generally known item finding, it was recently estimated to be 30% of searches by researchers at Yahoo. That data and a lot of context at http://surfmind.com/muzings/?p=119 . I'm not sure of a term that describes going out of your way to use search when an easier solution is available.

Next question, why? Perhaps the value of one consistent method to get to places you know is the core value. It also varies by users — some novice users may not understand the difference between the url and search bar. For more experienced users, perhaps it's the experience halo at Google though the widespread occurrence suggests it's more about search and the failure of browsers to adequately support revisitation.

On Mon, Dec 1, 2008 at 12:01 PM, James Box james.box at gmail.com wrote:

I'm sure we've all witnessed on how common it is for a user-experience to begin at Google these days, even when the user has a known destination/item.

...

No term, but I have been finding it shared on forums and social sites recently. Some of the more common forums will only search for words with 4 or more letters, making short words and acronyms impossible to find in the threads and messages. Personally, I use it to game the localness of craigslist... I just add 'craigslist' to the end of whatever I am searching... and I get a nation wide search, something the site does not facilitate.

Mark

On Dec 1, 2008, at 12:01 PM, James Box wrote:

I'm sure we've all witnessed on how common it is for a user- experience to begin at Google these days, even when the user has a known destination/item. I do it myself. For instance, say I want to look up 'Brighton' on Wikipedia, I find the most efficient method of getting there to type 'wikipedia brighton' into my browser's in-built google search. This is all based on the assumption that this will be the first result (it normally is) and therefore the quickest way for me to achieve my goal. This is certainly borne-out in the research [trim]

"My question is, does anyone know if there's a term for this kind of behaviour?"

Habit?

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Original Message
From: discuss-bounces at lists.interactiondesigners.com [mailto:discuss-bounces at lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of James Box
Sent: 01 December 2008 17:02
To: discuss at ixda.org
Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Google by default

I'm sure we've all witnessed on how common it is for a user-experience to begin at Google these days, even when the user has a known destination/item.

I do it myself. For instance, say I want to look up 'Brighton' on Wikipedia, I find the most efficient method of getting there to type 'wikipedia brighton' into my browser's in-built google search. This is all based on the assumption that this will be the first result (it normally is) and therefore the quickest way for me to achieve my goal.

This is certainly borne-out in the research I'm doing at the moment. In some cases, this behaviour seems so habitual that users will take this route, even when it isn't the most efficient method of reaching their goal.

My question is, does anyone know if there's a term for this kind of behaviour?

As an aside, it's interesting how advertising is attempting to capitalise on this. This film poster ( http://bit.ly/b1p5 ) encourages people to google 'Mother Lay-By' rather than displaying the film's URL. What's even better is that it doesn't work!

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Very interesting, I agree. For some time I've argued that Google (or an even better search engine) will eventually if not replace then cool down the domain industry.

Google knows much better if Basecamphq.com is more relevant for the Basecamp tool than basecamp.com. So why even rely on domains? Adding to this argument is of course the "I'm feeling lucky button". That button could replace most domains if the browser's search field would just send the user to the first (and thus most relevant) result of the search.

Oh, and here's another example of "Use google" in outdoor marketing. This is a huge banner in Copenhagen telling people to sign a petition.
http://flickr.com/photos/mortenjust/3072449512/

Morten Just, genstart.dk

Posted from the new ixda.org
http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=36080

Oh, here are the Japanese equivalents: Showing a search field with suggested search

http://www.cabel.name/2008 /03 /japan -urls -are -totally -out.html

Posted from the new ixda.org
http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=36080

First off, the examples given above are mostly cases where people don't have a domain. Maybe they don't want to go through the whole rigmarole of creating a website just for the purposes of showing a trailer. In the first and second examples, after actually searching Google for the content, I found that those advertisements had no DNS specific name for their content. Rather they were relying on several sites (i.e. youtube, aol, flickr, myspace, facebook) to display their content for them.

Secondly, Morten, I agree with you about the domain industry cooling down. Today more and more we see users relying on big name domains to supply the space for their content (i.e. Online stores, pics, videos, etc). We can also see websites (Mark's example: Craigslist) lack of willingness to expand certain search capabilities because they know that Google or some other search engine will or already does do it for them. Unfortunately this practice, in my opinion, is ultimately bad for users. If we continue to rely on monster search engines to aggregate our wants and needs, the highest bidding advertiser will dictate those wants and needs to us.

Lastly, a name for the behavior. One may already exist, but I have not found or heard of it. If I can be so bold I would like to submit my own suggestions...

1. Site Term = Perfection (STEP). For example, you could have a G-STEP (i.e. Google Wikipedia "Rome" = Perfection) and a Y-STEP. Have you "G-STEP"ped it yet? No, but I have been "Y-STEP"ing.

2. Advertisement Sponsored Redirect (ASR)

3. Or my favorite..."Searching"...okay not original, but if you don't want to complicate the term of the behavior that's what I would go with : )

2cents from Jake

Posted from the new ixda.org
http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=36080

hmm...sorry about that I guess it stripped some stuff from my suggestions. Let me try it this way.

Number 1 should have read:

Site (plus) Term = Perfection

Just wanted to clear that up : )

Posted from the new ixda.org
http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=36080

Interesting thread. A new trend that we are noticing on the standard internet users is that instead of bookmarking a page, they are remembering the keywords on which they found the site (page).

So, the new path to arrive to an already seeing page is to go to Google, type the keyword(s) and select the result (which is usually on the top 5). This is similar to the behaivor you described, James. You type "keyword wikipedia" and you know that you will get a wikipedia result.

Now, how do you call that behavior? I've been searching for a term as well. Users are not relying on URLs, funny domain names or even browser bookmarks. They are using search as way to bookmark content.

So maybe, we can call this behavior, Search bookmarking?

-Juan Ruiz
Senior User Experience

Posted from the new ixda.org
http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=36080

2008/12/1 James Box james.box at gmail.com

For instance, say I want to look up 'Brighton' on Wikipedia, I find the most efficient method of getting there to type 'wikipedia brighton' into my browser's in-built google search. This is all based on the assumption that this will be the first result (it normally is) and therefore the quickest way for me to achieve my goal.

...and gives you some other potentially interesting links.

I have set "w" shortcut in my Firefox address bar for "Search using Wiki" - so I have to type just "w Brighton" to get Wiki result. And in most of cases I still type for example "g Brighton" (even when I'm interested in Wiki page) - Wiki result is on the first place, but there is also some added value.

Kind of gavigation ;].

Greetings,
KPK

Personally I see it as shortcuts.

I've used Quicksilver for quite some time. Typing "PS4" and hitting return launches Photoshop CS4. This is far faster than locating the app itself and launching it.

The location bar of the browser has become packed with functionality over the last few years. OmniWeb searched your history when you typed in the location bar. Firefox included the page titles. Plenty of browsers made it possible to search in the location bar, and Google Chrome got rid of the search box altogether.

Meanwhile, InquisitorX provided splendid predictive search that let you jump directly from search field to site, and the Pagerization script for Greasemonkey allows you to scroll down through page upon page of search results at Google and other sites (I heartily recommend this plugin).

They're all little tweaks, but in sum, they're shortcuts to what you're looking for. Note: they also reinforce the power law winners.

Trained Behavior? Habit? Behavioral momentum? One trick ponism?

Every trick learned as a cost/benefit to using it, but there are also costs to carrying and selecting the tool, ideally if there's only one tool, the cost for selecting it goes to zero. So ones with the most utility end up in the shirt pockets of the mind.

Most users prefer to be spending their thought on more novel aspects like the question at hand, including not remembering exactly the URL or spelling of the words.

I find it also interesting that for people who develop/write, having local and web copies of the same information (e.g. a blog, code on google code), searching locally is 100x slower and less relevant than searching the cloud. Part of this could be made better by google for the desktop, part cannot until peers (family) review and hyperlink to that on my desktop. I suspect that this will only happen when semantic web get much smarter.

On Mon, Dec 1, 2008 at 9:01 AM, James Box james.box at gmail.com wrote:

I'm sure we've all witnessed on how common it is for a user-experience to begin at Google these days, even when the user has a known destination/item. I do it myself. For instance, say I want to look up 'Brighton' on Wikipedia, I find the most efficient method of getting there to type 'wikipedia brighton' into my browser's in-built google search. This is all based on the assumption that this will be the first result (it normally is) and therefore the quickest way for me to achieve my goal. This is certainly borne-out in the research I'm doing at [trim]

Juan Ruiz wrote:
Interesting thread. A new trend that we are noticing on the standard internet users is that instead of bookmarking a page, they are remembering the keywords on which they found the site (page).

I'm curious — in what context(s) are you seeing this? Using their own computers, shared computers, public kiosks?

--

J. Eric "jet" Townsend, CMU Master of Tangible Interaction Design '09

design: www.allartburns.org; hacking: www.flatline.net; HF: KG6ZVQ PGP: 0xD0D8C2E8 AC9B 0A23 C61A 1B4A 27C5 F799 A681 3C11 D0D8 C2E8

In my experience, I have seen this in all contexts: private computers, public computers, kiosks, etc. For a user, it is easier to remember the keyword(s) that found the results, than the domain name. But keep in mind, this scenario is not for common and popular companies with popular and already established urls (ie. Intel, Pepsi, etc)

Also, new ads are promoting the keywords rather than the domain name itself (look at the post by Morten, ie. http://www.cabel.name/2008/03 /japan -urls -are -totally -out.html) . In this example, companies are promoting this behavior.

-Juan

Original Message From: j. eric townsend [mailto:jet at flatline.net] Sent: Tuesday, December 09, 2008 6:44 AM To: Juan Ruiz Cc: discuss at ixda.org Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Google by default Juan Ruiz wrote: Interesting thread. A new trend that we are noticing on the standard internet users is that instead of bookmarking a page, they are remembering the keywords on which they found the site (page).

I'm curious — in what context(s) are you seeing this? Using their own computers, shared computers, public kiosks?