Ever faced the frustration of delivering a seemingly flawless search feature, only to have users dismiss it with a simple "it doesn't work"? Welcome to the complex world where user expectations clash with developer realities. Join me on a journey to understand the puzzle of search functionality, where the way real people search is very different from how techies do. As one colleague put it, “people expect Google, and they don't get that on most websites”.
But why is search so difficult? What factors do we need to consider when designing a search? And should we even have search at all?