Improving the search on the Help Center in FamilySearch.org
All, I am working on a project to improve the search on the Help Center in FamilySearch.org. In this quest I am trying to figure out how our users feel about that search and user experiences with it. Some of the questions I would like to answer along the way are:
- Do users trust search in Help Center?
- When you have used search in the help center do you find the information you are looking for?
- On average, how many search variations do you have to perform before you get useable results?
- Why do you use or avoid the self-help found in the help center?
- What are the improvements you would suggest there?
I would love for any input you have around this topic. Any insight you have regarding search is welcome. Thank you for your help. Please invite anyone you know has experience in this area to participate in this thread.
Comments
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I think the biggest difficulty with the current search methodology is synonym's. Users do not use the exact wording that is found in the article and therefore the search engine does not find the article. if the search would use a wider range of same meaning phrases or words and recognize as matching the meaning in the article, find articles would be much easier. Now if you do not find the article you know is there the user has to guess at terminology which can be very time consuming and discouraging.
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Mark,
Here is an example of the difficulty of finding an article in the help center. Try to find this article in the help center. --- Ordinance validity when performed with minor errors ---. The problem is not a synonym in this case. IF I search with the exact title the article appears as item no 9 in the list. Why? I would think it should be no 1. if I search with -- ordinance minor error-- I do not find the article at all. If I search with --- minor error --- I do not find the article at all.
In the last two examples the first article article found is --- How do I create a free account for a child? --- I understand why this would show up with the word minor but error -- somehow this search is not using all of the information provided.
Just for your information the salesforce search works much better for this example
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