Tide : Brightening results

Search pages match site design as well as content.

The Site

Tide, a detergents brand of Procter and Gamble, the US-based household and personal products company, adds a visual sparkle to its search tool.

Tide gives a prominent central position on its home page to an enlarged search field and button that sit below the primary navigation bar and overlay the page’s main image. On other pages, the search elements are ranged right but otherwise retain their prominent position and proportions. Search has a predictive capability, so that as users begin to enter a search term a dropdown panel appears below the field with up to three matches and a View All option in relevant categories of content: for example, products, ‘stain solutions’, special offers, articles. When the search button is clicked the panel is replaced by an expanded display in the main body of the page that adds the first lines of matched content to the results.

In both sets of results solid colour bars in the site’s orange livery are used to divide the display, with the name of the content category reversed out in white. Stock images are used in a left-hand column as visual reinforcement. The whole is finished off in the polished chrome look shared by the rest of the site.

The Takeaway

Most search results pages manage to look about as appealing as a warehouse inventory. Even the all-powerful Google has a look that is more distinctive than engaging. As for fitting in with the design standards of the site they have trawled, there rarely seems anything left in the budget to kit Cinderella out to go to the ball.

Perhaps that isn’t so surprising given how difficult many organisations still seem to find getting their search to work well, despite its importance to users. But here Tide shows just how much more usable and user-friendly a search engine can be if it’s integrated with the style of its site. While it’s still important that the underlying engine does its job and results are well organised (automatic sorting by category is itself noteworthy), these are displays that invite inspection. For a consumer product site they also give a simple but innovative boost to brand reinforcement.

First published on 25 June, 2009