Not every site has a search feature, and not every site needs one. But once your site starts amassing any amount of content at all (whether through an integrated blog, a large number of pages, or different downloadable resources), search is a high value feature to add to your site.
One of the best tools for running search on your site is the Google Custom Search Engine. This feature allows you to add a search feature to your Website that runs a search using all of the power of Google Search. Results are simple, but that’s all many sites need.
Using Google Custom Search Engine can save Website developers and business owners the time, money and resources involved in designing their own search. It can be done at any point in the lifecycle of the site. And it isn’t hugely expensive, starting at $100/year for up to 20,000 search queries (more than adequate for any smaller site). You can also customize the look and feel in various ways.
Speaking of look – search fields have been evolving their look and feel recently. Go to any top 6 Websites and you might see 6 different approaches to the look and feel of search.
Does look and feel have an impact on usability? Nielsen Norman Group wrote an interesting article recently about this topic, diving down into the details of how the magnifying icon is presented, and on the value of keeping a button called “Search.” But the trend is now towards simply using the little magnifying icon alone, and streamlining the look and feel of the search field. In my own observations of users during usability testing, I find many users simply press the “return” or “enter” key on their keyboards to initiate a search, so the graphical components are often moot.
Unless you have a database of thousands of items, you probably don’t need to add complexity to your search area with pulldown menus that filter results before the search is initiated. This kind of advanced search feature is reserved for use on sites such as photo libraries or eCommerce (where the results will be filtered on the next page anyway).
Regardless of how you present the search field on you site, consider incorporating a simple search field on your site if you want users to find what they’re looking for more quickly. A good search experience is a good user experience – period.