Ben Young has kindly decided to share his Scholarship winning essay on Live Search with AltSearchEngine readers.

In Challenges faced by Live Search in creating a Compelling experience my argument is that Live Search has been hindered by lack of a compelling experience.  Compelling experience is driven by flow.

My key findings (for those less akin to reading academic material):

* Model put forward by Hoffman, Novak was used to examine Live
Search’s challenge in creating a compelling experience
* Compelling experience is driven by flow.  In order to create
flow need to stimulate variables: Skill/Control, Challenge/Arousal and
Telepresence/TimeDistortion
* Skill/Control: Skill is users capacity for action.  Control is
perceived ability to successfully navigate.
* Challenge/Arousal: Challenge is the users opportunities for
action.  Arousal is a correlate of the challenge.  Challenges must be
perceived as of a level capable by the user.
* Telepresence/TimeDistortion:  Telepresence is the perception
that the virtual environment that the user is engaging in is more real
or dominant that the physical environment.  TimeDistortion is the
perception of time passing quickly.
* Lowering challenge barriers increases arousal | Users need to feel challenged (but not perceive the challenge as being too hard)
* Low load times and response to inputs encouraged great interaction
* Relevance of results indirectly influences perception of challenge
* Live search is lacking in creating a compelling experience.  For example, compare the search for ‘waterblaasting’ on Google vs Live Search.  Now try ‘blastin123455′.
* For the former, the challenge provided is easier, click the correct misspelling.  The latter again is easier, how does a 12 year old understand ‘try rephrasing or using synonyms’.  Given 30% of Internet users have low literacy! (reference in essay)

Practical wise:

* Keep language barriers low
* Ensure your service responds fast to input
* Make the process as streamlined as possible, Google providing the correct spelling as an option to search for vs no result, shows the ease at which users can slip into flow on google vs live search.
* Keep page load times down.
* Ensure challenge barriers are low (easy to user interface)
* Relevance of information is always crucial

To remain competitive in today’s environment this level of analysis is required.

You can view the full paper online at Scribd or download a pdf from here.

Ben is still seeking further sponsorship to attend university.  To read the rest of the post and more about Ben visit his blog.

You can view the full paper online at Scribd or download a pdf from here.

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