One site Jason and I were excited to send live recently is brahmin.com,
a Massachussetts-based manufacturer of upscale handbags and other
leather goods. Since the site's launch in September, we've gotten a
number of comments about how good it looks (thanks to Duffy &
Shanley, the agency that provided the design) and how well it performs
(thanks to Dave, the developer on the project, who made sure that the
site's enormous database didn't slow it down). This was a complex
project with several cool features; here I want to focus on just one of
them, the product search.
With a site meant for shopping, making
it easy for customers to find what they want is obviously a top
priority. We decided that the best approach would be a smart text
search like the one on apple.com. To see what I mean, head over to the
Apple site and start typing in something you might want to search for:
say, lapt... or i...well, i-anything. See what happens? As you type,
likely results autofill in a dropdown, with a graphic representation
right there to give you a better idea of what each one is. Pretty cool.
For
the search on Brahmin.com, we took the autofill concept and applied it
to the content that was most important for users to find: the products.
If you go to brahmin.com and start typing in a search query, you'll get
a dynamic recalculating list of products that match your terms.

This
search doesn't just let you search by the product's name, though; it's
actually an advanced search in an unconfusing, non-intimidating
disguise. Say I like the Soft Melbourne collection, but I also know I
really want a black bag. Easy:

We're excited
about this new search feature, and it will probably show up on more of
the sites we build in the future. For the successful execution, we
again have Dave to thank; speed is key here, and he made sure that the
results come up quickly enough for users to understand and work with
intuitively. There are still plenty of situations where a more
traditional advanced search with multiple variables will make more
sense, but two specific aspects of the Brahmin project made this model
a great fit here:

1. The users are highly expert. Not that all
of them will be technically expert--some undoubtedly won't, which made
ease of use a high priority in planning this feature. But they are
expert in the subject matter at hand. They know what a red satchel is,
they have a sense of whether that's what they're looking for, and so it
makes sense to give them maximum control over their search terms.
2.
The search meshes well with the compelling and frequently updated
photography on the site. Say I come to the homepage and see this:

I may see that and know that Jacqueline is my
bag, but marigold is not my color; or i may love the marigold but want
to see if it comes in a different kind of bag. No problem:


Like a fine handbag, that capability is both elegant and practical.
Sarah,
Great post! I'm glad you picked this search functionality to feature from Brahmin.com- I love it. I think using a responsive search tool like this is one of the best ways to interact with a product site's content, and I was especially glad to see that you can use categorical modifiers like "red" to narrow results. You, Jason and Dave did a great job on this. Awesome.
Chris
Ditto what Chris said... Great post!
So many of us are used to very basic search functions, and this simple addition adds a lot to the user experience-- especially on a site like this. I like how you explain not only how the functionality works, but also why you decided to implement it and its benefits for users.