Good Search Has Spoiled Me
by Nicholas Ward on 01/06/2010 at 1:29 pm in Commentary, Mobile Search, Within Range
The other day, the navigation software on my BlackBerry disappeared without reason. It was nowhere to be found. I could uninstall it, but I couldn’t open it from anywhere. After some research I figured out what happened, and the official fix from Sprint was to search the software store for “nav” and to download and reinstall the software. A direct link would have been nice, but I digress. At least there was search functionality…
Here is a sampling of the results:
Sprint Navigation for the BlackBerry Pearl 8130
I was desperate, so I decided to scroll through the results. Not one of the results on the page is for Sprint’s standard GPS navigation software, but it got me thinking of some of the ways that good search experiences have completely spoiled me:
- I constantly look for search kiosks in grocery stores.
- I get mad when I do a local search and it doesn’t bring up a OneBox result.
- I refuse to click next page if I don’t find what I want.
- I only type in a few letters to most search boxes and anxiously wait for suggestions.
- The first thing I look for on a complex page is a search box.
- I suffer anxiety at the thought of having to browse through a directory.
- I have become very, very bad at finding anything in the Yellow Pages.
I’m a little extreme, but I’m also part of a very valuable segment online for all kinds of businesses. There are a lot of us, and there is a lot of bad search. As a retailer, I’d want to know exactly how that segment felt about the experience I was providing, and optimize it as effectively as I could.
How much money do you think Sprint loses to bad search?
(I know, I know. Buy an iPhone. On it.)
