IMPORTANT: The enhanced search experience is accessible only to community users with Moderator, Administrator, or Community Manager access.
This article helps community users to learn about the changes in search functionality as part of the enhanced search experience.
Overview
The community is where customers collaborate, learn, and share product or service experiences. They heavily rely on search capabilities to navigate through all available information and access information that is most useful. The enhanced search experience in the community leverages Gainsight’s Horizon design system to simplify how community users use the search functionality, by bringing a host of improvements and new enhancements.
Key improvements and enhancements include:
- Sorted Live Search Results: Provides the most relevant live search results grouped by content type.
- Category Overview in All Search Results: Provides a brief overview of all search results in every category for quick reference.
- Organized Search Results by Categories: Provides one click access to category dedicated results through Category tabs in search results.
- Filter Capabilities within Categories: Provides advanced filters to quickly retrieve specific information in a category.
Sorted Live Search Results
Current Search Experience:
In the current search experience, live search results are categorized by the source type. This means all results from one source are collected together, regardless of the content type. This approach makes the live search results less user-friendly. Community users must browse through all results from a particular source to find the information they need, which is time-consuming.
New Search Experience:
The new search experience enhances usability by grouping the most relevant live search results by content type. This improvement allows community users to access accurate information directly from the live search results without needing to apply additional filters on the search results page. For example, the most relevant community results are categorized into types such as Questions, Ideas, Conversations and so on, based on the content type configuration in the community.
Category Overviews in All Search Results
Current Search Experience:
All results that match the search criteria are fetched and displayed without any category based sorting. This makes it cumbersome for community users to find relevant information timely. Additionally, any type of federated search results are listed towards the end of the results list. Due to this, community users need to scroll towards the end to access any type of federated content.
Note: Federated search refers to sourcing content managed by Community Managers and Administrators in third-party webpages. Common examples include NICE CXone (formerly known as MindTouch), Intercom, and other external blogs or content management systems.
New Search Experience:
The new search experience introduces category overviews in All Search to deliver a refreshed and streamlined user experience. Category overview provides community users a brief peak into the search results that belong to a particular category. They can further select View All to navigate to the detailed search results page of the selected category. This allows community users to quickly access the category they are interested in, and also avoid scrolling towards the end to access content. Furthermore, a category of federated search results is available, if a third-party source is linked to the community.
Organized Search Results by Categories
Current Search Experience:
Filters experience lacks intuitiveness as community users are unable to find a starting point. All filters are populated with multiple criteria that contribute to cognitive overload for community users.
New Search Experience:
The new search experience introduces category tabs in search results. Community users can access a category’s dedicated search results in one click. This enhancement eliminates primary dependency on filters and makes it easy for community users to sort and access all information that belongs to a category.
Filter Capabilities within Categories
Current Search Experience:
All search results are displayed on the first page, resulting in primary dependency on filters. This limitation shifts the burden on community users to apply multiple filters from every criteria to retrieve the information they want.
New Search Experience:
The new search experience brings filters inside categories. With this improvement, only those filters that are relevant to the category are visible. This dynamic filter availability significantly reduces cognitive overload and allows community users to apply filters efficiently.
Common Queries
How do I enable this feature in my community?
Community managers or administrators need to turn on the toggle switch from Control to enable the enhanced search experience in your community. To turn on the toggle switch:
- Log in to Control.
- Navigate to Settings > Open betas.
- Turn on the Enhanced Search Experience toggle. The enhanced search experience is enabled.
If you have any queries or feedback, please feel free to drop an email to docs@gainsight.com or post a reply to this article.
