I was in the middle of typing a really long response along these lines, but
Dre beat me to it.

But yeah, labeling is a big issue that really requires testing with actual
users to find out what works best for them. Giving users immediate
feedback/correction with Google Suggest-like functionality will clue them in
a bit quicker.

-Sean


On 7/30/10 9:04 AM, "Andreas Orphanides" <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

> Another thing that could help clarify the role of the search box would be to
> have some type-ahead action. This would cue the user as to what it is they are
> actually searching for, and also give them an opportunity to skip past the
> results screen if they select a full title from the type-ahead. Of course,
> this 
> would require a bit more infrastructure to support.
> 
> -dre.
> 
> Sarah Weeks wrote:
>> Long time lurker, first time poster.
>> I have a little usability question I was hoping someone could give me advice
>> on.
>> I'm updating the databases page on our website and we'd like to add a search
>> box that would search certain fields we have set up for our databases
>> (title, vendor, etc...) so that even if someone doesn't remember the first
>> word in the title, they can quickly find the database they're looking
>> through without having to scroll through the whole A-Z list.
>> My question is: if we add a search box to our main database page, how can we
>> make it clear that it's for searching FOR a database and not IN a database?
>> Some of the choices we've considered are:
>> Seach for a database:
>> Search this list:
>> Don't remember the name of the database? Search here:
>> 
>> I'm not feeling convinced by any of them. I'm afraid when people see a
>> search box they're not going to bother reading the text but will just assume
>> it's a federated search tool.
>> 
>> Any advice?
>> 
>> -Sarah Beth
>>