Hubert Burda Media: Preserving search results

Turning the pop-up into a valuable aid for site visitors also solves a problem common to site search features.

The Site

Hubert Burda Media is a large Germany-based magazine and internet publisher with 235 publications in its worldwide portfolio. As well as links to its subsidiaries and titles online, the company’s main, German-language site combines corporate information (HR, Company, Press) with Products and Services sections.

A universal site search panel (Suche) helps users to locate material on the site, initially by typing in keywords. The results of the search are displayed in a pop-up window that includes three further filtering options (Category, Channel and Zeitraum – time period). Each result is presented as a phrase or word requiring users to click on ‘mehr’ (more) to view the full article or page. This appears in the main browser window while the pop-up results box remains in the foreground. The user can then move freely between the two to read the selected page or view another result.

The Takeaway

Pop-up boxes are often a distraction or a downright nuisance to information seekers on a website. Hubert Burda Media has not only found a use that turns the pop-up into a valuable aid for site visitors, but has developed it to overcome a problem common to site search features.

Irrespective of the quality or quantity of search results that such features generate, on most sites they disappear once you have chosen to pursue a particular ‘match’. At best, you have to use the browser ‘back’ button to return to the results list; on some sites you have to re-start the search. Burda’s pop-up allows users both to review results from the list and retain the list to look at other options. This is particularly useful given the heavily truncated form the results take (though this may be a bi-product of the device). Other search facilities use ‘weighting’ or lengthier content extracts to help users with their selection of material. But Burda is a rarity in using the medium itself to sort the message.

First published on 01 February, 2005