You might not think the tips from the last post are rocket science, that’s because they are not, but many organisations do not spend enough time understanding how their users use search and how it could be improved. Improving search does take time and dedication. At BT the intranet team have worked hard in this area resulting in an award winning search capability.
Mark Morrell, Intranet Manager at BT described what went into search at BT, and why they are such worthy award winners:
- The intranet team took time to research and understand the search engine they had, both the limitations it might have and also how to get the most out the functionality it offered
- Both basic and advanced search is available from every intranet page
- But before people even get to search there are several alternatives to aide the user in finding the content they need
Popular sites and links
Popular searches
And A-Z listing of content
Other places to look which may be useful - Once the user chooses to search, they can opt to search one of the following
The intranet
The internet
Internal news groups - On the search results page there are
Recommended links (developed through analysis of successful search results)
Good details around the results, to give a clearer idea if this is the content the user is looking for
The ability to refine the search without too much reworking
So, as you can see, BT’s intranet search already has many of the features looked for in the IBF search benchmark, however Mark describes how BT are always looking to improve the search further and not sitting still on this. “Our next plans are to review the search engine we use and to extend the search capability beyond the content held within our content management systems, further out into our document management systems and other databases”
They might be good already, but there can always be improvement… how does your intranet search fair?
