Proposal for a centered search box in XWiki

[tkrieck]

@MichaelHamann

How would this look like on mobile where the width might not have enough space for logo, search bar, register and login links, and the menu toggle button?

On mobile the default behavior will still be a button to open search, there’s not much we can do.

@lukasM

These users are the power users of our instance. I would definitely have expected them to use the search without me telling them about it.

@Simpel

That’s the reason why we put a prominent costum search bar on our start page. But this second one isn’t able to do suggestions what is a pity.

Thank you for your feedback. This is very interesting from an UX point of view on user behavior.

@vmassol

For discovery, we have the Tour application that starts up for every new user. Thus if your user didn’t know about the search, it’s probably that they skipped the tour since it’s explained in the 3rd step

Perhaps we can check the effectiveness of the onboarding tour. I don’t know right now a method to do it, but maybe it’s a thing we could seek feedback on. As a user, I usually skip those on any app or website.

@CharpentierLucas

I created a FAQ entry about customizing a wiki to move this search function towards the middle (and keep it always open).

Thank you Lucas! Does the search suggest box is moved as well with this method?

[mleduc]

@tkrieck

As a user, I usually skip those on any app or website.

It’s the same for me, and I don’t think the timing is right.
Users get all the information very early, so early that they haven’t had a chance to discover the site for themselves.
I get the impression that by the time the details of the tour would be useful, they’re long forgotten.
But I don’t have a better option in mind right now.

[vmassol]

@tkrieck

Perhaps we can check the effectiveness of the onboarding tour. I don’t know right now a method to do it, but maybe it’s a thing we could seek feedback on. As a user, I usually skip those on any app or website.

I don’t think we should (too costly for little result IMO), unless the idea is to drop the tour in case we think it’s not used, or if it’s part of a more general usability study (in this case it can be worth it to check the tour in addition to the rest).

The main reason i say it’s not worth it is because even if it’s not used, we still display the search icon on every single page, so it’s not like the tour would be needed and users who didn’t see it cannot find search…

TBH I really don’t see how someone interested in searching would not see the search icon…

And my main point was to not put something that would be displayed 100% of the time to users if the goal is for discoverability. As I said, it has to have a purpose other than discoverability and needs to fill a need.

(after more thinking) Actually I think I see one case where discoverability is more interesting for the search feature: the wiki is used as a web site and users don’t log in (ie they don’t have an account and are not using the wiki regularly, ie they don’t know how it works and have not built knowledge about how to use it. In other words, most of them are first time users and they’re just here to read/find some information). In this case, maybe it’s interesting to focus the user on the search. But I’m wondering in this case if it wouldn’t be best to put the search on the main page content instead as it was suggested at Proposal for a centered search box in XWiki - #17 by Simpel since that would be even more effective.

[vmassol]

@vmassol

TBH I really don’t see how someone interested in searching would not see the search icon…

Does anyone have problems searching on this forum?

[CharpentierLucas]

@tkrieck

Thank you Lucas! Does the search suggest box is moved as well with this method?

Yup, from what I remember it’s positionned relative to the input position that’s why it’s still working properly

[TomTheWise]

@vmassol

TBH I really don’t see how someone interested in searching would not see the search icon…

To share my feedback from our production intranet: A surprisingly amount of users aren’t thinking like „I want to search where is the search button“ but rather look what they directly see in front of them and use that way. So if they can‘t directly see the search they will never get the idea of simply searching.
For us it’s also very interesting to make the search more prominent. It is extremely important to make the correct / best / most efficient way the one that is also the most direct and convenient one, so the users are encouraged to use that.

In the future I can see how the AI search / LLM chat interface could possibly take the very prominent space in the middle instead.

[lukasM]

Proposal for a centered search box in XWiki

To share my feedback from our production intranet: A surprisingly amount of users aren’t thinking like „I want to search where is the search button“ but rather look what they directly see in front of them and use that way. So if they can‘t directly see the search they will never get the idea of simply searching. For us it’s also very interesting to make the search more prominent. It is extremely important to make the correct / best / most efficient way the one that is also the most direct and …

I can only second this. For some of our users (especially the less technical ones) we have the same situation: Not the user’s intentions, but instead what is (clearly) visible decides what actions they take. Interesting idea regarding the LLM integration placement!

Proposal for a centered search box in XWiki

Does anyone have problems searching on this forum?

In my opinion, this is also about the users in the forum being more technically versed than a standard XWiki user in an organization. We all do not have problems navigating and using this forum but this might just be due to the special user group present here.
To make this point even more broad: In my experience our “technical” users generally have way way less problems getting started with XWiki than our users without a technical background. With this in mind, adjustments that are “low hanging fruits”, improve the UX and education of “non-technical” users and also do not minder the experience for the “technical” / “advanced” users are great ways to improve not only the UX but also the adoption rate of XWiki in general because it becomes less “scary” to use.