I had previously pointed out that the apple.com search sucked. They’ve now upgraded it and it is much better. In typical Apple style they have innovated with site search but I still think they could do better.
The innovation is an AJAX search interface. The search starts to show results as you type, – they appear directly below the search box. Apple aren’t the first people to have done this but it is the most prominent site I’ve seen that is using this approach. As you would expect their implementation is fast and slick.
You can still type a keyword in, hit the enter key and see results. This is the traditional search paradigm. So they have added to that rather changed the paradigm – which is good. A lot of people that attempt to do AJAX use the opportunity to break traditional user interfaces. This can produce cool but ultimately useless interfaces – if most people can’t work out how to use them.
There are still some problems with their search. The first is that they categorize the search results. They show results from products, apple store (not really sure what the difference between those two is), downloads, itunes, support then company. This means that if the most relevant result is not in the products category then it won’t be shown at the top. A search for nano support for example has the most relevant page – the nano support page almost at the bottom of the search results.
Another problem with the results is relevance. Relevance is the most important aspect of search. Take a look at the top 5 results for ipod – not an ipod in sight – but I’m sure they sell them:
The search results also don’t have price, sorting options and only limited ability to refine the results.
