The Future of Search Not
October 27, 2011
We received an email from one of my one or two readers pointing me to “The Future of Search” by Martin Belam at Enterprise Search Europe. Good points but in my opinion, the functions describe some world which is hostile to search dinosaurs. Maybe the hip crowd is into this particular “expert’s” vision of search. I am not.
In the hyperlinked write up, the author pointed out three “items” which appear to make clear a topic I find quite unclear. My reaction was that these items do not capture search either of the moment or some “to be” world where content management experts, governance specialists, and “real” journalists look for information. The items described a future that underscores a conceptual problems in thinking about information retrieval.
There was the obligatory reference to UX, Microsoft’s horrible compression of the phrase “user experience.” In my parlance, this is the kindergarten, razzle dazzle interface of video games. Angry Birds is great for someone who needs distraction. For search, UX is an issue. The flashy interface may disguise flawed, incomplete, or manipulated result sets. Eye candy is not information by default. Confusing paint with the mechanical soundness of the vehicle may be a problem for some people.
There was acknowledgment that search is going mobile. What is important about mobile is that the user is pulled into what I call “shortcut land.” Forget the codes that whisk one to a Web page. The notion of predictive search involves algorithms and engineers who determine thresholds for smart software. When systems do the thinking, will the Gen X and Gen Y folks make better decisions? Hard to say, but they will be in a more controlled and monitored decision environment. Happy there?
Finally, the future of search will involve touch. Frankly, I don’t want to search using “touch”. Google has already used its usage data to kill off Boolean logic. Without Boolean there are more opportunities to put ads in front of users who get a bigger, fuzzier result set. I want to craft a query and launch it against a corpus of content that has an editorial policy. I do not want to point at a facet. I want to obtain on point information in a “hands on” manner. I want to paw, not touch.
To sum up, if I read the article correctly, search is not just dead. Search has been forgotten. Even more interesting is that the discussion of search has little to do with the need for a person to locate unbiased information with precision and recall.
If this is the future of search, I want none of it. As one colleague quipped, “Don’t fail to miss it.”
Done.
Ken Toth, October 27, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
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[…] Video is becoming more accessible and easy to use online, but users need to remember that point-and-click and easy may not equal knowledge. The future of search is apparently mobile and touch – which we aren’t so sure about. […]