UX designers can help users overcome information overload, as the volume of content and data grows on the web and inside organizational repositories. Enterprise search engines models are improving, but there designs lag behind. New tools come more sophisticated design decisions.

In this hands-on course, Duane Degler took participants on a journey through the evolving search landscape, with a particular focus on considerations for designing and evaluating the user experience. Participants worked in small groups to evaluate various existing search/browse interfaces, learning a “language” for different aspects of the experience that they can apply in their work.

We also “looked under the covers” to understand the way these tools operate. This provides participants with the language and conceptual framework to guide conversations with developers and content authors. As a bonus, we discussed emerging interactions such as voice, federation, and semantic interpretation.