Search don’t Sort: Forget filing, and embrace searching

Search don’t sort: Forget filing, and embrace searching
Photo at http://www.flickr.com/photos/nenaugust/3581968875/
It is a huge paradigm shift but one of the key changes that is happening all over the web right now. Search technology has improved rapidly over the past few years. In 2000 we could search the whole internet faster than our own computer, with Google. Lately though speedy desktop search is a reality and it’s time to make the most of it. Take bookmarks and shortcuts for example – my logic is that if I can’t remember enough about a page or file to find it again using a search function, it’s not worth saving!
Have you ever thought about how a computer uses Folders and Files? Those concepts _obviously_ come from the filing cabinets that we all know and maybe it’s time to leave behind some of the old metaphor. (photo of filing cabinet) Google’s Gmail was one of the first email programs to do away with folders, instead replacing them with ‘labels’. The difference is subtle but huge. A message can only go in one folder, but any number of labels can be applied to a single message, if it needs a label at all.
How can search replace filing?
- You wrote an email to me about that party and I need to know the time it starts? I’ll search my inbox.
- I need to know about some topic and I know I have information about it in a pdf of a slideshow, but which one? I’ll search for it.
- I need to open Microsoft Word so I can write a document? I’ll search for Word and open it.
- I’m uploading a new display picture to website. I’ll search for ‘avatar’ using the folder search box to instantly find the image that I use everywhere.
- There are a million examples here!
__Try it sometime, search don’t sort.__

It is a huge paradigm shift but one of the key changes that is happening all over the web right now. Search technology has improved rapidly over the past few years. In 2000 we could search the whole internet faster than our own computer, with Google. Lately though speedy desktop search is a reality and it’s time to make the most of it. Take bookmarks and shortcuts for example – my logic is that if I can’t remember enough about a page or file to find it again using a search function, it’s not worth saving!

loveletters Search dont Sort: Forget filing, and embrace searching

Have you ever thought about how a computer uses Folders and Files? Those concepts _obviously_ come from the filing cabinets that we all know and maybe it’s time to leave behind some of the old metaphor. (photo of filing cabinet) Google’s Gmail was one of the first email programs to do away with folders, instead replacing them with ‘labels’. The difference is subtle but huge. A message can only go in one folder, but any number of labels can be applied to a single message, if it needs a label at all.

How can search replace filing?

  • You wrote an email to me about that party and I need to know the time it starts? I’ll search my inbox.
  • I need to know about some topic and I know I have information about it in a pdf of a slideshow, but which one? I’ll search for it.
  • I need to open Microsoft Word so I can write a document? I’ll search for Word and open it.
  • I’m uploading a new display picture to website. I’ll search for ‘avatar’ using the folder search box to instantly find the image that I use everywhere.
  • There are a million examples here!

Try it sometime, search don’t sort.

By Ross Hill - October 21st, 2009 at 12:22pm with 657 views -

Related posts:

  1. Inside Twitter: Building a platform for the planetary pulse
  2. Your iPhone is simply a new interface
  3. Google shows their hand with Chrome
  • sighmon
    Partly agree with you Ross, but to get really good + quick search results, search engines rely on us categorising our data well through naming and lists. So if we forget how to sort and just search, then won't the future of good search results suffer?

    When new data arrives, I sort it.
    When I need that data, I search.
  • Yeah naming is certainly a big deal, particularly with the subject lines -
    but I haven't had much trouble finding things in gmail. They've figured it
    out somehow :)

    ======
  • sighmon
    That's true for text based emails, but if you're searching images or videos a decent naming convention / sorting method helps a lot.

    Face recognition in photos + videos is getting better, but its not quite there for me yet.
  • I feel desktop search still has a long way to come but email search is rather nice. And "RSS this" or "Save this search" features work great. It's just a shame that very few applications support quick search or limit what you can search for to titles or mundane tags. If the application accepts it, you should be able to search for it. Facebook could learn from this, especially when you're searching for a specific comment or status update. But no application searches. They piss me off too much already!
  • Are you a windows man? I find quite a lot of the mac apps integrate
    Spotlight search, which is pretty awesome, and if they don't integrate it
    directly it's still there in the file view widgets.

    ======
  • Yeah I'm a Windows user. I used OS X for a number of months and enjoyed searching, but a lot of the apps I used appeared to only search the basics and using combinations of words failed. More natural searches would have worked better for me.
  • I agree! The search functionality in gmail is brilliant. There's no need for folders/labels etc. Why put in the extra effort with your labeling/filing system when the search functionality does it better?
  • Spotlight makes Mail on a mac almost as good too - so you're not locked into gmail forever!
  • I couldn't agree anymore Ross. Whilst I use labels a little in Gmail, I frequently find myself just searching for something, as opposed to viewing the label i added to it. this has seen a decline in my use of labels over the last 12 months or so as I've grown to trust the search function more.
  • That's interesting.. I wonder what you're missing out on? In Wave I can see
    that we'll definitely need some finely tuned searches to keep on top of the
    masses of realtime content, perhaps in email it's not such a big deal but it
    would be cool to see how some power-label-users are doing it at the moment.
    Mine are pretty limited - I filter mailing lists into labels and have a few
    'folders' and that's it.

    ======
blog comments powered by Disqus

You are visiting rosshill.com.au. This post was made possible by people like an anonymous micropatron.

Have these updates provided you value? Become a micropatron today.