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0 pointsshawnz5y ago0 comments

I expect most users genuinely looking for such a product would just search "plain shirt"

0 comments

That is an inclusive search though. What if the user actually wanted to simply exclude stripes but wanted to see polka dots and paisley?

shawnzOP5y ago

I think that is probably not a common enough use case to optimize for. Additionally it would be easy for a user in that position to just search "shirt" and ignore the occasional striped one, or to search "polka dot" and "paisley" seperately

PascLeRasc5y ago

That sounds like a lot of repetitive searching. I wonder if we could get a computer to do that for us.

1 more reply

lolc5y ago

You're arguing the search is "good enough". Because we can adapt to the machines. But the company who will not force us to do so will get our business. The company who creates the best digital butler will win. They know this. They try hard. And they still fail at simple stuff when judged by humans.

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binarymax5y ago

Assumptions like this is what makes search so terrible for many many companies.

You can't assume that customers would type one thing or another - you need to gather lots of query log data and see what you find. You'd be surprised how much variation there is, but once you do have this data you can then find patterns to cover lots of (but not all) cases.

shawnzOP5y ago

Of course, they should look at the data before making such an assumption. I am not suggesting otherwise, I'm just making a guess as to why it's been done this way. I suspect they have looked at the data and identified that it is not a common use case.

fifticon5y ago

"Shirts without stripes" was meant to illustrate the point. The general query issue it represents cannot be solved by adding "plain".

na855y ago

Apple probably expected most users genuinely wanting to make a phone call would hold their iphone 4s a certain way. Turns out expectations don't always match reality.

arcturus175y ago

Like I said in another comment, this yields plenty of results that are not in fact plain shirts. Try for yourself on Amazon or Google.

shawnzOP5y ago

I did try on Amazon before making the comment and it showed me only plain shirts (at least for the first page of results).

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 comments

cheschire5y ago

That is an inclusive search though. What if the user actually wanted to simply exclude stripes but wanted to see polka dots and paisley?

shawnzOP5y ago

PascLeRasc5y ago

That sounds like a lot of repetitive searching. I wonder if we could get a computer to do that for us.

1 more reply

lolc5y ago

1 more reply

binarymax5y ago

Assumptions like this is what makes search so terrible for many many companies.

shawnzOP5y ago

fifticon5y ago

"Shirts without stripes" was meant to illustrate the point. The general query issue it represents cannot be solved by adding "plain".

na855y ago

Apple probably expected most users genuinely wanting to make a phone call would hold their iphone 4s a certain way. Turns out expectations don't always match reality.

arcturus175y ago

Like I said in another comment, this yields plenty of results that are not in fact plain shirts. Try for yourself on Amazon or Google.

shawnzOP5y ago

I did try on Amazon before making the comment and it showed me only plain shirts (at least for the first page of results).

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse