Sometimes you hear people utter the phrase “I had an intuition” at which point you may wonder whether he/she has the ability to view the future. But that isn’t the case. Intuition is the feeling people derive based on instinct and this instinct isn’t based on conscious reasoning.

This subliminal, cerebral concept holds immense significance in the world of mobile app design. After all, why do we associate one symbol with a specific action? Is it a natural tendency or one that emerges from our daily experiences? Today we’ll chase the answers to such questions and determine what features and facets constitute an optimum intuitive search functionality in a mobile app.

What is Intuitive Design? 

An intuitive app design consists of everything that defines the importance of UI/UX design in an app. Its components, be it the typography or content flow, allow guesswork to guide action, say searching for information. An intuitive design subtly conveys its meaning at the same time staring the user in the face, quite literally. It is so symbolically evident that the user cannot and must not think of anything else, other than the intended use of the feature. An intuitive design architecture must engender the following characteristics to be considered instinctive:

Discoverability is second nature to mobile app design search. From the menu bars to the profile sections, you can explore everything within a click-or-two without losing your way.

Affordance is another word for perception. Intuitive UI uses a barrage of visual cues to tell the user what would clicking a button result in. Its elements keep in mind what the user wants/expects from a button. This brings us to our next point.

Expectations of the user should be complemented by visual cues. A bell commonly denotes a notification, thumbs-up a like, etc. Intuitive UI design integrates a diaspora of icons that appeal to common sense.

Efficiency should be thought of in terms of minimalism. A minimalist design is non-confrontational in that the users go through exactly the steps that they must to accomplish a task.

Responsiveness of the app communicates whether the performed action by the user is successful. Intuitiveness takes it a step forward and expounds on corrective measures in instances of a boo-boo.

Importance of Intuitive UX Design

Mobile has gained a domineering position in almost every aspect of our life. For many, they’ve totally replaced desktops. As a matter of fact, 40% of people use their phones for online searches. Of all the video views in the world, more than 50% come from smartphones.

Factoring in the time and utility people thrust on to their phones, intuitive design elements pose as an exercise that any mobile app design agency would undertake foremost and one that everyone should know when reading into a mobile app design guide.

Creating Intuitive Mobile App Search 

Search is probably the first action most users perform in any app. It’s a wormhole that lets users fast-forward to their area of choice. Yet, you would find striking differences between the search functionality of a great app and a good app.

Having been a mobile app design company since our foundation, it is our DNA to go intuitive-first, as we have on so many occasions. As a result of which we’re in a position to share with you our thoughts on how to go about designing a user friendly in-app search option. We’ve divided the process into 4 stages for better understanding.

1.  Search Bar

Let’s begin with the physical attributes of the search bar, its form, and on-screen positioning.

Search Bar Size

The bible for UX search best practices recommends making the search bar big enough.

If your design permits, the search field should ideally be an expansive box placed in the view of the user. Often, you would come across search icons, clicking which expands the search field. Though it appears interesting, yet from a UX point of view, it bears negative results and thus can be noted as a UI/UX mistake you should avoid.

Not recommended

Contextually, the icon is supposed to simplify typing a query, but the icon-only search adds an extra step before the user can do so. Opting for an open text field would point the users in the right direction.

Recommended

Search icon 

The search field should, without fail, be represented by a magnifying glass. Thanks to all the snitch flicks that stereotyped magnifying glasses to look for something, people have come to accept the sign by default. Use the most simplistic image of a magnifying glass with little to no graphical additions. This is one place where the less you do, the more it speaks for itself.

2.  Entering Search Query

Most of us have been typing in the Google search bar for years now. Yet, we commit typos. Misspellings annoy users as not everyone is a grammar-nazi and usually want to rush through the entire step. Therefore, it is the responsibility of a mobile app design company to make entering the search-input as easy as possible.

Keyword-based Search

Nothing overboard about it. You enter the search query in the search field and down below appears a list of search results that match your keywords. Click the option closest to your intended information and there you go. Quite a few apps continue to employ this mechanism. Twitter for one displays both the hashtags associated with your query followed by the social handles if any.

But such a system has its shortcomings. It depends on the consumer typing the correct input every single time. This is solved by some of the more innovative solutions thanks to the emerging deployment of AI in search, as we shall see in the coming sections.

Filtered Search

Websites with a product catalogue stretching into the thousands integrate heavy handed filtered search to deliver a refined search functionality in the app. Examples include domains such as E-commerce, Edtech, and travel. Given that there are thousands of results matching the inputted keyword, it is wise to let a user zero-in on options most closely related to their search.

While some apps offer the option to add filters right before hitting the magnifying glass, there are others that daunt the user with total results and then make them sort through.

Predictive Search

In terms of apps that involve a lot of data entry, such as conversational apps (like Whatsapp) or lifestyle apps (like Pinterest), incorporating an auto-complete option is a good idea. The feature is one of the ways AI can help develop next-gen apps. The app design firm that undertakes the development of your application must build in-app capabilities that register recent searches as part of the search history. Upon re-entering a keyword the first thing that the user would see in the auto-suggest drop-down list will be his/her recently entered keywords.

If yours is not an E-commerce store, then auto-suggest should blend in perfectly as there is a pattern to everything the user does and your job is to uncover that to make in-app search simple.

Limited Search

Onloading your app with various sophistications may not always be the right choice. Websites want to prolong user-sessions in order to maximise page visits. An app runs contrary to this theme and focuses on recurring visits by the user, even if the sessions last a couple of seconds.

Design search considerations could entertain the idea of limiting search features in an app. Keep only the amount that transports users where they want to be, for instance, compartmentalizing your content into categories as is done in Hotels.com.

Voice Search 

Voice search is designed for a hands-off experience while using the app. Apps that cater such a functionality often tend to be those that are used for cross-connection and multimedia broadcasting. Google offers one of the best voice search functions beginning which the market started designing content that is voice search friendly. Spotify is yet another example, which allows you to search songs with the hold of a button.

3.  Fetch Results 

The thumb rule states search results should come up as soon as the finger hits enter. However, you could seldom face network lag, in which case the user should know to expect a delay.

This speed test indicator is a good example. It uses a speedometer animation to divert attention from the fact that the app is consuming time to calculate the actual network speed. If alongside the animation, you can display the total time (hopefully seconds) the user should wait then all the better.

Mostly, the search results are expected to be accurate. But as a mobile application design company, Anteelo also pays close attention to error-prone queries that lead to a dead-end. What comes next shouldn’t be anybody’s guess but a rational step-by-step approach to get the right input from the user, as we find out in the upcoming sections.

Tackling “No Matches Found”

Never leave the customer staring at the wall. Even if the code does not find suitable results to display, offer something to the viewer. When there are no relevant results to show for, show alternative or remotely related products or the most popular search categories. You never know if that was the intent of the user. A blank page in such conditions leaves a bad taste in the mouth of the user who may take the app to be inefficient.

Correspond the Right Message

While displaying related products is one way to appease the user, what if the problem runs deeper than that. The backend could actually have malfunctioned and there is no shame in admitting and underlining the encountered problem to the user. But make sure you give hope that the issue may be resolved sooner than later.

Amazon does one of the best gimmicks in this area, with finesse. Everybody loves dogs, so Amazon developers thought why not use them to their advantage. Have a look at that error message.

Help Users Correct Entries

We all make typos. It’s normal. And most people sensibly accept their fault when an algorithm points it out. In case of Google searches, the majority of us are glad that the engine knows our search intent as it rectifies and suggests correctly spelled words. This doesn’t change with the app, but it can get better.

Without fail, whether you’re building an app inhouse or outsourcing the work to a mobile app design and development company, make sure the algos are trained to correct misspellings.

Create Category Headers

When the content is highly diversified it is best positioned under parent categories. Take the case of Spotify. It has millions of songs and they have demarcated specific search categories by which to sort them. Their parent tags are artists, songs, podcasts and if the user knows their genre, then they can jump right into it. Think of how you can distribute your content likewise.

Choose a Layout Template 

Presentation has a lot to do with the way your floor the content. Netflix is a prime example, pun intended, to display a side-slide search functionality. It proved oxygenated air against the stale, tried and overused style of content flow that included carousels, and pagination. Infinite scrolls have also been proven to be addictive and equally effective.

On-demand Loading

Also known as lazy loading, it is a content optimization technique deployed to display the content that is intended for first, than bulk loading the page in one instance. It saves time and consumes lesser network bandwidth, and renders instant gratification to the user. Lazy loading allows developers to avoid code execution that can be delayed till the point the user demands further information.

Anteelo started out of an intuitive decision by a group of friends and today has a growing stature in the world of mobile app development. Despite the accolades, we keep our head to the ground, happily accept projects that we can wrap under our sheets and politely admit if something is beyond our means, which has thankfully never transpired. If intuitive design is what got you here, we bet you’d be amazed to know the full extent of our services.

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The way we interact with the internet is changing. Many of us now use voice to search online and the answers we get are increasingly being spoken to us. This isn’t just happening on smart speakers, which are becoming commonplace, it is also being used on phones, computers and even on devices like smart TVs. If this is the future of how we use the internet, it is obviously going to affect the content that organisations place on their websites and in this post, we’ll look at what changes are likely to be needed.

Why you need to act now

It is estimated that by 2020 over half of all internet searches will be done by voice. This is due to a number of factors. First of all is the low price of smart speakers. You can pick up a basic Amazon Echo Dot or a Google Home for around £30; cheap enough to put several around the home so voice searches can be done anywhere without having to touch a keyboard.

Hand in hand with their low price are the consistent improvements in natural language processing. Computers can now understand what we say and speak back to us in intelligible ways and their ability to do so is getting better all the time. While, for the time being, what we can do with voice search is fairly limited, the scope of their abilities will no doubt expand to help us in ways we currently haven’t begun to fathom.

For website owners, this means that what you publish on your sites will increasingly be read out to the searcher rather than being presented to them visually and this will impact how that content is created in the first place.

Voice search results

One of the biggest differences between voice and keyboard searches will be in the way that search results are presented. As we all know, when we search using a keyboard and screen, we are shown a list of search results and click on the one that most appeals to us. This is why most websites strive to be on the first page of results.

With voice search, this isn’t always going to happen. Where there is a screen on which to view the results, for example when using Cortana, Siri, or Google Assistant on a computer or phone, the results may show up as we are used to. However, on smart speakers and other devices, reading out a long list of titles and snippets would not be user-friendly; instead, the google search engine will make the choice for us and read out what it considers to be the most appropriate answer.

Indeed, even screen-based search is moving in this direction. Type a question into Google , today, and before it presents a list of websites to look at, it will show you what it considers to be the best answer in the knowledge graph at the top of the page. This is a move which keeps the visitor on a Google page and reduces the chances of any other web page being visited.

What’s the solution for website owners? It means that for voice searches, it is even more crucial that the titles and metadata are focused on the search query and, in doing so, provide answers in themselves that can be read out. Websites that can feature in the knowledge graph are the ones which are most likely to be visited.

The rise of natural language generation

With the use of AI and machine learning, the information supplied by voice searches is going to get more sophisticated. At present, it uses natural language processing to understand your enquiry and then uses this to identify the most relevant content to speak back to you. In the future, it will go beyond this. With natural language generation and AI, the search engine will be able to gather the essential information from the internet, perhaps taking small elements from many different sites and will reformulate these into a single, cohesive and comprehensive answer. So, rather than speaking out verbatim what it finds, it will generate specific answers to specific questions. For example, if you ask what restaurants are the best in your local area, it might search all the various review sites, looking beyond star ratings, to consider the actual text individuals write in their reviews. In addition, it may also take into consideration the browsing and purchase history of the customer in order to offer what it considers the appropriate response. In this sense, search engines will morph into concierges offering personalised customer services.

Will there be an end to screen searches?

There will always be a need for screen searches. If consumers want to purchase something, they usually want to see it first. Indeed, it goes against freedom of choice not to give a customer options and if they removed these, google search engines will lose massive revenues from their advertisers. This is perhaps why so many smart speakers with screens are already being produced, in order to give us the best of voice and screen searching.

How will this affect content creation?

All these developments point to several changes that websites need to make to help them stay relevant in the age of the voice search.

Firstly, the content published on a webpage needs to be structured and written in a way that makes sense when read aloud. This means writing in a way which sounds natural and using vocabulary that communicates information clearly. Accurate punctuation, which is essential for ensuring meaning is communicated clearly, will become more vital than ever.

Another factor is in creating different content for different searchers. The use of subject orientated terminology might be suitable for some readers but not for others. A search engine could determine the level of understanding that a searcher has and look for search results that the user could understand when the website was read out to them. For some businesses, therefore, the solution would be in creating both a layperson’s and a subject specialist’s page.

Graphical data is one area, in particular, which needs to be looked at carefully when considering voice searches. Tables and lists work very well for visual searches and can save users lots of time when they look for information on your site. However, when read out, they don’t always make the best sense and it would be easier to understand if the information was put into sentences and paragraphs. The obvious answer to this is the development of a new type of responsive site – one which provides different versions depending on whether the results are shown or read. This, however, is a development for the future. For the time being, it may mean making both sets of information available.

SEO also has a part to play in helping websites do well in voice searches. Indeed, Google recommends that SEO focuses on making it simple for the search engines to understand what the content is about. This should be done through the use of titles, meta descriptions, headings and subheadings as well as using proper descriptions rather than just keywords in image alt-tags. Just remember that most of these things need to work for visual consumption at the same time.

Conclusion

With the advance of voice search technology and the popularity of smart speakers, we are moving into a new era of internet use where there is less need to be stuck to a screen to find the information we want or to carry out actions. For website owners, this will push you towards creating content that is suitable for both kinds of search and which makes sense when read aloud.

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