This looks great guys! A couple things that I wanted to add to what you've written above.
The article summary along with the title are the only things that the user has to judge whether an article will answer their question or not. I refer to this as "User Confidence" and it directly impacts click thru. Even if we serve the correct article at the top of the search results list, the user needs to make the mental connection between the search query and the results we display for them to click thru. For articles that are more troubleshooting in nature, we should put the symptoms in the summary as that is likely what the user will search. Verdi gave a great example of a troubleshooting article above. If an article is more of a general information type article we should use the summary field to list the topics covered in the article.
Here is an example search: Open window in new tab
Now take a look at the fourth result in the list. Here is what you'll see:
Article Name: Options Window - Tabs Panel
Summary: This document explains all of the preferences available in the Tabs panel of the Preferences window of Mozilla Firefox. For other panels, see Preferences window.
As an end user, I've got no way of connecting the search that I've entered with the information displayed for this article so I won't click on it.
It would be far more enticing if it looked something like this:
Article Name: Tab Options and Behavior
Summary: The Options Window - Tabs Panel allows you to customize tab behaviors such as opening new windows in tabs, warnings for opening/closing multiple tabs, displaying the tab bar at all times, and switching to new tabs immediately.
You can really see how little information we are giving in search results if you do a search for options. It's probably not a very common search, but this illustrates the point as most of the summaries simply repeat the title of the document.
One last thing to mention is that we should always give search higher priority than browse navigation when we are naming our documents and writing summaries. Why you ask? Because we can manually change the title of a document to fit our task based navigation and we won't be showing the summary! We don't have the luxury to change the titles in search results. This is something that can be done with best bets and tailored searches, but that is a conversation for a different thread!
This looks great guys! A couple things that I wanted to add to what you've written above.
The article summary along with the title are the only things that the user has to judge whether an article will answer their question or not. I refer to this as "User Confidence" and it directly impacts click thru. Even if we serve the correct article at the top of the search results list, the user needs to make the mental connection between the search query and the results we display for them to click thru. For articles that are more troubleshooting in nature, we should put the symptoms in the summary as that is likely what the user will search. Verdi gave a great example of a troubleshooting article above. If an article is more of a general information type article we should use the summary field to list the topics covered in the article.
Here is an example search: [https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/search?e=es&product=desktop&q_tags=desktop&q=Open+window+in+new+tab Open window in new tab]
Now take a look at the fourth result in the list. Here is what you'll see:<br>
'''Article Name:''' Options Window - Tabs Panel<br>
'''Summary:''' This document explains all of the preferences available in the Tabs panel of the Preferences window of Mozilla Firefox. For other panels, see Preferences window.
As an end user, I've got no way of connecting the search that I've entered with the information displayed for this article so I won't click on it.
It would be far more enticing if it looked something like this:<br>
'''Article Name:''' Tab Options and Behavior<br>
'''Summary:''' The Options Window - Tabs Panel allows you to customize tab behaviors such as opening new windows in tabs, warnings for opening/closing multiple tabs, displaying the tab bar at all times, and switching to new tabs immediately.
You can really see how little information we are giving in search results if you do a search for [https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/search?e=es&q=options options]. It's probably not a very common search, but this illustrates the point as most of the summaries simply repeat the title of the document.
One last thing to mention is that we should always give search higher priority than browse navigation when we are naming our documents and writing summaries. Why you ask? Because we can manually change the title of a document to fit our task based navigation and we won't be showing the summary! We don't have the luxury to change the titles in search results. This is something that can be done with best bets and tailored searches, but that is a conversation for a different thread!
