SEARCH FLOW IN DESCRIPTION FEATURE

What happens to the responsive search flow when we design a feature to look up in the item description? In the next few paragraphs, I’ll share my perspective on the value of designing a friendly and responsive search flow to unlock business value.

The user’s focus during the e-commerce journey is often dedicated to the search flow. Sometimes, the results after performing a standard search are not enough. To keep the user focused and increase engagement during the search experience, we used the “search in the description” feature.

In my benchmark, I also put in the top list delivering this function. During the sketching phase, I stumbled into these scenarios:

SCENARIO EXTRA SMALL BREAKPOINT #1

1. The user performs a search with one or more keywords;
2. The user lands on a listing page with some items to scan;
3. At the end of the list (browsing via pagination, infinite scroll or more content button), we display a message about the number of results and an on/off toggle to extend the search in the description;
4. The page is refreshing and is delivering the new listing page with extra items;
5. At the top of the page, the user will see the update results and the on/off toggle button active. Providing content on the go, and we suggest extending the search only at the end of the browsing session to not overload the user with an additional task;

CONs

• The message will be available only at the end of the browsing process. The user who wants to search with this function is in a dead spot. We solved adding this functionality in the filters dropdown;

SCENARIO EXTRA SMALL BREAKPOINT #2

1. The user performs a search with one or more keywords;
2. The user lands on a listing page with some items to scan;
3. At the top of the list, we display a message about the number of results and a check button to extend the keyword search in the description;
4. The page is refreshing and is delivering the new listing page with extra items;
5. At the top of the page, the user will see the updated results and the active check button. Providing all the information about the listing in the first part of the page;

• We put the user in control to manage the list with all the elements designed for this purpose. 
• We are not overloading the user with a new task;
• The user effort is not more focused to scan the list;

In the end, we decided to deliver the solution for scenario #2 because;

• this solution is closer to the current methodology to display form controls (ex., dropdowns, text fields, radio buttons, etc.);
• putting this control sticky to the top of the page makes it easy for the user to perform additional search loops
• we’re we’re-dent there is no extra effort for the learning curve;