July 02, 2005
Extreme searching
You come here for tips - solid, usable advice - and day after day I give you nothing but my own questions. Shame, isn't it?
Ah, there I go again.
Actually, I have a more serious question and it's about extreme searchers: who are they and why should we care? (Sorry, that was two questions.) Really.
This comes up because of a new book called Yahoo to the Max: An Extreme Searcher Guide. And because on one end the search engines struggle hard to make the dumbest, most ambiguous query yield relevant results. On the other, they spend resources building in arcane search features that may not even be accessible without easter-egg type discovery! Don't believe me, see here:
"When you really want to get to know a site, click everywhere. That's because all web sites, even those that are carefully designed by teams of usability experts like those at Yahoo, have hidden nooks and crannies that often lead you down unexpected paths that can be incredibly useful."
Suggestion: fire any technical staffer who builds and ships "hidden nooks and crannies that often lead you down unexpected paths that can be incredibly useful." If possible, fire in a way such that this person will never work in your town again. Take time out to ladle on some public humiliation as well.
Hey, I came up with a practical tip!
Meanwhile, my only working model of an extreme searcher is that of some kind of special agent who has to find a special bomb decomissioning manual before his ticking suitcase goes off. Not a big book market and not someone you would optimize for.
Posted by at July 2, 2005 01:47 AM