Jaseth
0
- Joined
- Jan 30, 2009
- Messages
- 1,630
- Points
- 0
When a new member enters the forum, he is usually smacked in the face with the 'search button'-hammer, but we continue to see new threads asking the same questions - questions which have been answered many times to many degrees of detail.
There are several obvious reasons for this, but one which I think carries a lot of the blame and can be fixed easily is the forum search button.
The search tab included in the forum software is both inefficient and confusing. The Google Custom Search is great and most people already know how to use it well and apply search operators.
However, many only notice the search tab because it is at the top of the page - and once their search has returned no relevant results a couple of times they give up and post a thread rather than look for better search possibilities. The bottom of the page would be an easy place to find the search bar if it wasn't for the large number of sub-forums and huge amount of advertising.
I would like to see the search tab removed entirely and the Google bar moved to the top of the forum - or at least somewhere more visible.
There are several obvious reasons for this, but one which I think carries a lot of the blame and can be fixed easily is the forum search button.
The search tab included in the forum software is both inefficient and confusing. The Google Custom Search is great and most people already know how to use it well and apply search operators.
However, many only notice the search tab because it is at the top of the page - and once their search has returned no relevant results a couple of times they give up and post a thread rather than look for better search possibilities. The bottom of the page would be an easy place to find the search bar if it wasn't for the large number of sub-forums and huge amount of advertising.
I would like to see the search tab removed entirely and the Google bar moved to the top of the forum - or at least somewhere more visible.