Improve your search box with user-friendly microcopy
Sometimes, small changes can make a big impact.
Consider the search box, which is probably front and center on your library’s website. Is there placeholder text within the search field? What does the button say? Is there help text indicating what the user is searching?
Each of these little blurbs of text is an example of microcopy, a term from the field of user experience (UX). Microcopy includes button labels, tooltips, page titles, short instructions, and error messages. In this column, we’ll zero in on one place where microcopy is critically important: the search box.
Read the whole post on Libtech Insights →
I pen occasional posts for LibTech Insights, a blog about technology in academic libraries from Choice, an ACRL/ALA publisher.
Turns out I’ve been thinking about search box design for about a decade. I wrote about a more complex design for a search box that includes pre-filters back in 2017, when I was working at the library at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. And I actually still really like that design!