Refining Search with User Lexicon Metadata
SERIES OVERVIEW
This is the final part of a three-part series describing how user research produced insights to develop new UI components; informed the design of bots that automate content publishing; and improved the search experience.
With new research areas emerging at Princeton University, the engineering school wanted a way to advertise and manage open faculty positions on its website. This post focuses on improving the search experience by applying “user lexicon metadata.”
USER LEXICON
Every industry has its own lexicon and people search for information using terms familiar to them. While job descriptions from the JSON data included some key terms, they didn’t capture some of the nuances.
Phrases like “faculty jobs in energy”, “entrepreneurship faculty”, or “open faculty positions”, were absent from the main job description.
By using the bots to add these phrases to the metadata, the site’s search engine returned better results.
SEARCH UX WITHOUT METADATA
Without the metadata, the wrong results are returned.
SEARCH UX WITH METADATA
With the metadata, the right results are returned — especially for nuanced search phrases.
Final Thoughts
We built an experience centered around user expectations. In part one, we discovered key insights by running a first-click study. In part two, we used these insights to develop new UI components and page templates. And, in part three, we refined the search experience based on user lexicon.
After the feature launched, we began applying new card designs throughout the site. The latest version is always available on the School of Engineering and Applied Science’s website.