Målet vårt er ofte å lage en “intern Google” for kundene våre. Det betyr at vi må forstå hva brukerne leter etter.

Når du søker på “365″: Leter du da etter en kollega med internnummer som slutter på 365? Leter du etter personen med ansattnummer 365? Eller leter du rett og slett etter eksperten på produktet deres som heter “365″?

Jeg er en stor tilhenger av ett stort søk for bedriften din! Og jeg vet at jeg har flinke kolleger som kjenner veien frem til god relevans og en smart søkemotor.

Men: Min teori er at et godt søk blir enda bedre, jo mer vi vet om hva du egentlig leter etter.

Vi har to ganske tydelige retninger for personsøk: Enten søker du etter kontaktinfo eller så leter du etter områdeeksperten.

Lek at vi skal lage et internsøk for Willy Wonka. Målet vårt er å la Oompa Loompaene bruke mest mulig tid på å lage  fantastisk godteri, og minst mulig tid på å lete etter oppskrifter, eksperter og telefonnummer.

I tillegg til å ha laget et stort “internt Google”, har vi også laget to app’er for Loompaene. En telefonbok og et ekspertsøk.

Først telefonboken:

Willy Wonka PhoneBook er akkurat det det høres ut som. En app på datamaskinen, nettbrettet eller smarttelefonen som lar Loompane søke internt etter et telefonnummer eller en Lync-kontakt. I eksempelet over husker ikke brukeren fornavnet på kollegaen, men vet at han heter Loompa til etternavn og at han jobber i sjokoladeavdelingen. (Og slapp av! Selv om du ikke ser forskjell klarer en Oompa Loompa å skille ansiktene fra hverandre.)

Dette løser et problem vi ikke bare finner på sjokoladefabrikker, men hos de fleste av våre kunder; å finne telefonnummeret. Og på denne måten har vi enda større sjanse for å gi dem rett svar på topp i resultatlisten.

Fordi brukerhistorien er så enkel som “jeg vil finne kontaktinfo til kollegaen min”, kan vi også strippe løsningen for sortering og fasetter – og ende opp med et enda enklere brukergrensesnitt.

Når en Oompa Loompa på den annen side vil finne eksperten på sorbet kan han derimot starte app’en “Willy Wonka Expert Search”:

Ekspertsøket søker gjennom alle dokumenter som ligger på filserveren til Willy Wonka, og søker gjennom alle diskusjoner, statusoppdateringer, grupper og diskusjoner på Willy Wonkas “interne Facebook”. Gjennom å finne hvem som har skrevet mest om fagområdet sorbet, kan vi mest sannsynlig også vise frem at “Roger Loompa” er eksperten på området.

Når vi i tillegg ser at Roger på Iskrem labratoriet har nevnt sorbet i sin siste statusoppdatering … kan vi vel si at vi har en vinner.

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Målet er ikke å lage en haug med app’er. Langt i fra! Målet er derimot å gi brukeren rett svar på spørsmålet sitt – hver eneste gang.

Å lage løsninger som forteller oss mer om hva brukeren leter etter, gjerne allerede før de har gjort et søk, øker sannsynligheten for å gi det rette svaret med en gang.

Our goal is often to make “an internal Google” for our customers. That indicates that we must understand what you are looking for.

When you search for “365”: Are you looking for the person with the internal phone number 365? Are you looking for a colleague with the employee number 365? Or are you actually looking for the expert on your product, named “365”?

I am all for making one big search for your company! And I know I have colleagues that are magicians enough to solve these kinds of traps.

But: My theory is that a great search gets even greater when we know more about what the users are looking for.

These  are the two directions of people search:

Let’s pretend we make a search solution for Willy Wonka. Our goal is to let the Oompa Loompas spent as much time as possible making candy, and as little time as possible searching for recipes and phone numbers.

In addition to having one great search where they find everything, we also made two apps for the Loompas. One PhoneBook and one ExpertSearch.

The PhoneBook is exactly that: An internal app on the Oompa Loompas desktop, smartboard or smartphone, where they can search for the phone number of the loompa in the chocolate department that they don’t remember the name to. (Chill! They can separate their colleagues from each other even if you think they all look the same.)

This solves a common user need  that we find not only in candy factories, but at most of our customers. And we have a lot greater chance to give them the right answer doing it like this.

Because we take away all other user stories then “I want to find my colleagues contact information”, we can also take away almost all navigation and refiners – and end up with a much cleaner interface.

When an Oompa Loompa on the other hand needs help on refining the sorbet in the ice cream room, he can start the ExpertSearch app on his desktop, smartboard og smartphone.

The ExpertSearch searches within all documents written in the Willy Wonka Factory, and goes through all the discussions, social updates and communities on their internal collaboration system. From finding who has written and talked the most about sorbet, we can most likely end up with suggestion “Roger Loompa” as the subject matter expert.

When we see that Roger in the Ice Cream Lab. in addition mentions sorbet in his latest MySite Status, I guess we have a winner.

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Making a lot of apps isn’t the goal in itself. Not at all! The goal is to give the users the right answer on top of the search result list, every time.

But making solutions that gives the user the opportunity to tell us more about what kind of an answer he is looking for, even before he makes the search, increases the likelihood of giving the correct answer right away.

Prince Sverre Magnus – Screenshot from the Norwegian Royal Families website.

Lately, there have been some parties. For example yesterday, when we celebrated the 17th of May – Norway’s day of independence. Then we sat down, after hours of parades and sausage eating and suddenly realized that we couldn’t remember the name of the youngest member of the Norwegian Royal Family. “Magnus-something-or-other” was the closest we came.

Then the solution was, as usual, to pick up the iPhone and search for “the Royal Family” on Google. Not only did we find out that his name is Sverre Magnus, but we also got to see pictures, his birthday, what his sister is called, and so on and so forth. Also the complete list of the royal family gave us new topics of conversation and maybe more answers then we did sought.

And why do I use the blog to share an uninteresting, private Royal-Family conversation I had at the 17th of May? Simply because I every day see how important good search is as a problem solver, and a way to find the answer we’re looking for.

In a workplace, we have lots of information available: both internal information and information through, for example, Google or Bing. How much time do we spend talking about things we cannot find the answer to? Or how much time do we spend sitting alone wondering? Or how much time do we spend digging through old documents, presentations, customer records, and so on.

If we have good internal search at work, we can quickly find answers, find richer answers then we were looking for, and find colleagues that can give the answer to us.

And the search should be as easy as my 17th of May-solution, to grab the phone out of my pocket.

What is your experience with internal search?