Presented at TRLN Annual Meeting in 2014 this is an overview of work we've done to design a library single search application applying responsive design techniques to make the application usable on mobile and desktop devices. We also describe a new feature we call "stratified typeahead" to suggest groups of results live as people enter text into the search box.

1. A Single Search Box For
Your Phone
(and other screens)
Kevin Beswick & Cory Lown
NCSU Libraries
TRLN Annual Meeting - July 2014

2. 2007 2009 2011

3. Increasing traffic to mobile site

4. Frequent mobile site activities

5. Mobile site not meeting all needs.
14% of people redirected to the mobile site
opted to switch back to the desktop site.

6. What they did next… Search
Search 51%
Reserve a room 12%
Hunt Library Info 6%
Library Hours 5%
Journal Title
Lookup/Search
3%
everything else... 22%

8. Context
● Evidence of increased mobile traffic
● Search a popular activity from mobile
● When mobile site failed, desktop search was
the most frequent next step.

9. Opportunities
● Get out of the business of building and
maintaining separate mobile/desktop
versions of apps
● Rethink single search based on years of
usage data
● Apply responsive design to single search for
use on phones, tablets, laptops, desktops.
● Re-architect the search application using a
modern web application framework

10. Desktop Single Search Usage

15. Mobile usage is different

16. Stratified Typeahead

17. Examples in the Wild - Twitter

18. Examples in the Wild - LinkedIn

19. Stratified Typeahead in QuickSearch

20. Stratified Typeahead in QS (Mobile)

21. QuickSearch Typeahead Result
Categories
● Known result types - Best Bets, FAQs,
Spaces
○ A click will lead directly to content
● Search suggestions - drawn from TRLN
catalog typeahead
○ A click will lead to search results page
● Content types very easily interchangeable

22. Why Stratified Typeahead in
QuickSearch?
● Makes searching even quicker
● We think it is cognitively easier to
understand results if they are pre-organized
into categories
○ Similar to the existing categorized design of
QuickSearch
● Encourages exploration of other content
types, resources

23. Typeahead & Problems Introduced
by Responsive Design
● Above / Below the Fold
○ Provides a view of result types that may appear
lower on the search results page
● Improves mobile device experience
○ Saves typing time
○ Allows users to access specific content faster
without loading a search results page

24. Typeahead User Research
● Usability testing conducted on the typeahead
feature before launching
● Users liked that it saved them time, was
easy to use, and quick to respond
● Reordered content types based on user
feedback
● Also uncovered several smaller issues that
were able to be fixed before launch

25. Early Typeahead Usage Stats

26. Early Typeahead Usage Stats

27. Next Steps for QuickSearch
● Observe Fall semester usage, compare to
previous usage data
○ Explore opportunities for improvement
● Apply machine learning principles to predict
how result categories should be arranged on
the search results page

28. Thank You
Cory Lown <cory_lown@ncsu.edu>
Digital Technologies Development Librarian
NCSU Libraries
Kevin Beswick <kevin_beswick@ncsu.edu>
NCSU Libraries’ Fellow