Search is an incredibly interesting problem, one that’s so complex in the background yet so simple on the surface. In this two part article, we examine the desire to duplicate the Google search experience in the enterprise and how we need to change what we expect from enterprise search based on what we’re willing to do to make it work.
What could be easier than entering a few keywords into a single text box and, in a fraction of a second, being granted access to tens or even hundreds of millions of relevant resources — all the information we could ever really want right at the tips of our fingers. For most, this is perceived as a near perfect user experience that is today’s reality when we search online using Google.
Yet a common complaint heard internally across many organizations is the inability to easily find the right answer amongst a set of far fewer, and often less relevant results. The organization of content into intuitive information architectures is a challenging problem, and the creation of navigational constructs that classify information into meaningful categories is becoming increasingly difficult due to the sheer volume of content being produced.
The user experience is increasingly becoming both complicated and fragmented and is placing a greater emphasis on search as the silver bullet. Unfortunately, search too is failing to meet the needs of our users and is oftentimes perceived as nothing more than “a random document generator”, as one client has colorfully put it.
