Don't Curtail the Long Tail: Lessons for Search and Information Access
1. Discrete attributes aid prediction. Compared with keyword search, navigation is a sure bet. But, as we've seen, ambiguous categories still pose a problem. The answer is navigation based on attributes, or facets. Refining a list of items by their attributes allows users to accurately predict that the items on the next page will share the selected characteristics. Two things happen as a result: (a.) A user creates an ad hoc category that's perfect for him, which couldn't have been predicted by a taxonomist; and (b.) The user sees his predictions repeatedly come true, making him feel that he understands how to use the tools at his disposal. This sense of control is the greatest indicator of likely success in a searching scenario.7
2. Integrated search and navigation support adaptation. Neither navigation nor search alone is enough. One or the other may be the better place to start, depending on the user and her goal. Once she takes that first step, her second could require searching within the results or refining them by an attribute, as could the third step, and so on. Searching at an information portal for news on "interest rates" and refining the resulting documents by date is one thing; refining them by an attribute the user never would have thought to ask for Exposing the attributes of the search results next to the listings themselves lets users modify their search strategies in ways they couldn't have planned.
3. Consistent context encourages iteration. Moving back and forth between search and navigation is valuable only if each step builds on the last, and each available option is valid given the choices already made. For example, that job-posting site should only invite our job-seeker to narrow the list to her home town if procurement positions actually exist there. In short, users should be able to refine all their searches by navigating, all their navigation by searching, without ever hitting a dead end.
4. Spotlighting drives users further down the long tail. Better search tools provide the support people need to find what they're looking for. But even then they can't find what they don't know they want. Anderson points out that recommendations are a necessity in the "long tail world." Site managers should be able to throw a spotlight on items they want to feature, using the context of the user's past choices to fine-tune the highlighted items. The counterintuitive reality of the long tail is that its potential is based on aggregating supply and demand, but its realization is based on helping individuals find just the right thing, one scenario at a time.
1 "The Long Tail," Wired, Issue 12/10, 2004.
2 From the revised version of Anderson's article, which can be found at changethis.com (http://www.changethis.com/10.LongTail).
3 Jakob Nielsen demonstrated this in 1997 (http://www.useit.com/ alertbox/9704b).
4 N. Belkin, "Interaction with texts: Information retrieval as information-seeking behavior," 1993.
5 J. Porter, "Testing the Three-Click Rule," 2003.
6 P. Pirolli, S. Card,"Information Foraging Theory, 1999.
7 N. Belkin, "An overview of results from Rutgers' investigations of interactive information retrieval," 1998.
Endeca (
www.endeca.com), headquartered in Cambridge, MA, was founded in 1999 to transform the online search and navigation experience so that people can easily access the full breadth and depth of large data sets. Today, Endeca solutions for enterprise search and commerce are already helping businesses across a variety of sectors including financial services, manufacturing, retail, information providers and business-to-business with applications that address the information overload problems associated with enterprise information access and retrieval and content and catalog management.