Search: Don??™t deploy without it
Because a knowledgebase is designed to contain a vast amount of content??”quite possibly
more than any other part of the corporate website??”it must be designed to help users find
very specific, targeted information. Where a FAQ must be easy to browse, a knowledgebase
must be easy to search. In fact, providing the opportunity to browse is secondary in
importance; only a severe minority of users will even attempt to manually navigate a
knowledgebase of any substantial size.
A knowledgebase requires a dedicated search, and should not be lumped into the general
site search. Users should know before they enter a single word that the results will be
exclusive to the knowledgebase.
Designing search for a knowledgebase is a bit different than general site search. Since
there is typically a voluminous amount of information to sift through, it has to be treated
as more of a general web search, with the search box prominent and focused on immediate
use. See Figure 10-4 for an example.
Figure 10-4. The knowledgebase search should be simple and prominent.
As you can see from Figure 10-4, a knowledgebase-specific search should have the following:
A prominent presence in the page: The landing page for a knowledgebase should
have the search function highlighted, front and center, without any ambiguity
about its functionality and exclusivity.
Pages:
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