Ux on Harlan D. Harris

Search Describes Solutions -- But What About Problems?

harlan.harris@gmail.com (Harlan Harris) — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

In a previous post I said that Search User Interfaces (UI) have two jobs -- helping people find things and educating them about the catalog's structure. (I'll use "catalog" here under the assumption that I'm describing an e-commerce search system, but much of this post is relevant for other search domains.) The search results, facets, and other elements describe the catalog: the solutions and products available.

But there's a third job that's often not addressed and not always well defined: helping users understand their problem, before they're ready to evaluate solutions. Standard search UI patterns assume the user is already in the right mental state to evaluate what's on offer. The design challenge that I want to discuss, then, is to figure out how best to support problem education in search interfaces.

A Big Win from a Small Search UI Change and a Predictive Model

harlan.harris@gmail.com (Harlan Harris) — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

One of my biggest commercial wins was a seemingly small UI tweak that led to a roughly 1.5% marketplace revenue bump. Teachers Pay Teachers (TPT, think "Etsy for Teachers" -- educational resources created by and sold to other educators) was a mature marketplace, where revenue wins from search system changes were typically under 0.5%. How we got this win is, I think, instructive, reinforcing the value of a search scientist, and of having a holistic view of search UI/UX and algorithms.

Design Decisions for a New Search Results Page

harlan.harris@gmail.com (Harlan Harris) — Fri, 08 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

One of my specialties as a freelance consultant is discovery systems for e-commerce -- web pages and backend systems for helping users search for and find what they want or need. For the last year and a half, I've been working as a consultant for DesignShop, a company that sells materials samples for home renovations. Want to find a countertop, cabinet, paint, and tile combo for your kitchen reno that looks great, with samples shipped overnight? Check 'em out.

Post Query Refinement Suggestions in Search UX, and an Algolia Demo App

harlan.harris@gmail.com (Harlan Harris) — Fri, 23 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

What are Post-Query Refinement Suggestions?

One of my favorite search UX patterns is post-query refinement suggestions — buttons that appear between the search box and results, adjusting the query in various ways. See, for instance, these suggestions on Etsy, which recommend that I filter by shipping speed, seller type, cost range, style, etc.

Filter Suggestions on Etsy

PQRS is a mouthful of an abbreviation, but most of what I've seen as alternatives either describes the UI element ("refinement pills") rather than the function, or is excessively vague ("guided search"). So PQRSs it is, sorry.