Isn’t it amazing how our behaviors change? Just a couple of years ago the primary means of navigating a website was to look long and hard at the navigation and try to decide where to go and how to find what you are looking for. This called for very clear and simple navigations. Lucky us, because sites are now so much easier to navigate than before.
Over the past years though, search has begun to play a bigger role. With Google Chrome integrating the search field with the address bar, users sometimes run a search instead of typing the URL, a practice that’s now more common than ever.
This sparks a new necessity on our websites. A clear and easy way to search. On some of the sites that I’ve recently re-designed for clients, placing a search field in a clearly visible location has increased their conversions as customers find what they want. Of course, this requires a good search system.
Whether we like it or not, search is beginning to get deeply implemented in our fundamental behavior for how to browse the web. As a designer or someone who has a website in general, we might use it to our advantage right?
Share your thoughts on search in the comments! Do you search more than you use navigation links when you get the option? Which do you prefer?
