Out of the box, most search engines are poorly designed for the needs of general intranet searchers. Cluttered with complex features, these search tools can easily be overwhelming for staff who simply want search to work ‘like Google’.

The first step that the intranet team should take when installing a new search engine is to strip out 80% of the functionality provided out of the box.

The aim must be to deliver a simple search that hides its power behind the scenes, rather than presenting it as complexity in the user interface.

Cluttered search

Search vendors naturally want to show off all their features to prospective purchasers (often in IT departments). They turn on all the latest advanced functionality, presenting complex pages with many different options.

Intranet search, however, must meet the needs of the true users: general staff within the organisation. Thinking little about search, they simply want to be able to find information when they need it.

They will invest little time in learning search, and may only enter a few words and hit ’search’. These are the users that want search to work ‘like Google’. Not in the sense that it actually looks like Google, but that it is as easy to find the required information.

[CM Briefing 2008-14, read the full article]