Tuesday, April 12, 2005

Psychology of Search - Once and For All

We've designed Trexy so it 'cognitively fits' on an individual scale and collectively.

At the moment, we search, sometimes find, and often forget. What did I search on again? Where did I find that? How many times have you gone back and searched for the same thing? Did you know that one of the most popular search queries is 'hotmail'!?

Our bookmarks/favourites list is so long we need a search engine just to search it. Browser history? No thanks, give me a search engine. And we're off again to the nearest search engine with our 2.5 search terms hoping to get lucky.

Here's how we want Trexy to 'cognitively fit' into this process:
  1. "Have I found that before?" - Search My Trails.
  2. "Has someone else found it before?" - Search All Trails.
  3. "Ok. I'll go find it once and for all." - Blaze a New Trail.
This models how we search in real life. We first consult our memories - "do I know the answer to that?" If we don't, then we ask someone who does. If that's too hard, or they don't know, we go looking for the answer ourselves.

This is how we naturally search and Trexy models this process. Simple, isn't it?

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