Why are you denying users their Search Results?

[musicscotland]

There seems to be a bug in the default generated Search Results page in SellerDeck 2013 (and also previous Actinic versions, incidentally) which is poor from a usability point of view. I'm surprised it hasn't been highlighted and resolved properly before now, for such an important presentation as search results.

A user arrives at your SellerDeck site and does a Quick Search on a popular search term. What happens then? On initial page rendering they're directed to a long page of search results with the most relevant links at the top. Then after a second or two when the page load has completed? The user is automatically scrolled past those most important results to the bottom of the page where the 'advanced search' term input box is focussed.

Of the eleven most recent SellerDeck 2013 Showcase Sites on offer, this happens in seven of the sites (64%). Two of the sites follow a fix suggested by Actinic in 2009 and move the search fields to the top of the page. On one of the sites, the Quick Search doesn't work at all. Only one site gets it right due to the position of the Quick Search later in the HTML code then the secondary search.

This is really what should happen:

1. The Quick Search box is focussed on every page, ready for immediate keyboard input by the user, without having to click into the search box. Apart from the checkout fields, when the first of these should be focussed.
2. After a Quick Search, the user is presented with an immediate, unobstructed, relevance-sorted list of search results, which doesn't scroll anywhere.
3. After scrolling to the bottom of this list, the search can then be refined if necessary by re-searching on keywords, price, section, length, colour, carats, smell etc.

Update for SellerDeck 2014

The actinicsearch.js script has changed so you won't find the same code block as SellerDeck 2013. In my opinion, the best way to automatically set focus on the Quick Search form input is to make these amendments to the the Standard Quick Search Bar layout:

<input type="text" name="SS" size="18" value="" placeholder="Quick Search" autofocus class="quick-search-text" />

(remove onfocus="this.value='';")

The autofocus and placeholder attributes are supported in most modern browsers other than IE9 and below.

SellerDeck 2013
The simplest solution I've found so far to always focus the Quick Search input on page load is an amendment to actinicsearch.js (DAYNO=NBLA). Line 661 of the unmodified SD2013 file, or look for:

// set focus for other than Quick Search text box
			//
			if ((document.forms[nIndex].SS.value) && (document.forms[nIndex].SS.value === 'Quick Search'))
				{
				continue;
				}
			document.forms[nIndex].SS.focus();
			}

Swap the if/else statements so this becomes:

// set focus for other than Quick Search text box
			//
			if ((document.forms[nIndex].SS.value) && (document.forms[nIndex].SS.value === 'Quick Search'))
				{
				document.forms[nIndex].SS.focus();				
				}
			continue;
			}

Note that this will only work if you've retained the name="SS" and value="Quick Search" attributes in the Standard Quick Search Bar HTML layout:

<input type="text" name="SS" size="18" value="Quick Search" onfocus="this.value='';" class="quick-search-text" />

The Quick Search background text will disappear immediately (onfocus="this.value='';") but you can add an HTML5 placeholder attribute value here instead to give some background text for newer browsers:

<input type="text" placeholder="your placeholder text" name="SS" size="18" value="Quick Search" onfocus="this.value='';" class="quick-search-text" />

The autocomplete will still work for both search fields on the Search Results page.

[peblaco]

I'm aware of this issue which is why I've customised it. SellerDeck 2013 filtering results shows a bar at the top of the page. Usability is improved by having search by and filter / sort by options at the top. I avoid script edits if there is an alternative because upgrades wipe scripts. There should be a better solution. Hopefully a fix will be included in a future version.

[musicscotland]

Yes sidebar search fields, pagination, filtering & sort options, even additional search boxes above search results I don't have a problem with. Google even place their search refinements above the results, but in a single 'Search tools' button/drop-down. They're all unobtrusive and take up a line or two.

What I think is an unwise solution to the second search box problem with focus (no anchor tag involved) is moving the search results below the 'advanced search' options layout - Option 1 here (Option 2 Javascript has been developed and moved to actinicsearch.js). Because if you wanted to develop the search functionality by adding section-based searching or any further custom variable search fields, there's going to be too much space occupied there (try it on a tablet) asking the user to refine their search before they've even seen their first results. By default you even get some disclaimer blurb on prices - which might not be relevant - plus redundant instruction on how to use a search engine...

Agreed that a script fix by SellerDeck is needed here for future, though looks like a lot of current sites will still be throwing visitors to the bottom of their search results.

[Krithika]

Hi Kenny, Louise

Sorry to note the problems caused by this issue. This has been logged in our to-be fixed list slated for a future release.

Regards

[peblaco]

I tried the Javascript method and noticed a couple of issues. If using more than one product in a section or content above a product, using filtering or quick search the anchor doesn't go to product it jumps back to the the search field because of focus.

[musicscotland]

Yes I can see that could happen. I was testing this with Single Product Pages only, no internal anchor links involved. Ideally actinicsearch.js should only focus the header Quick Search input on the Search Results page, which is where you definitely don't want the focus to jump to the bottom of the results.

[Buzby]

In addition to this, is it possible to add the customers search text to the top of the page in a H1 tag to make the page look more like other pages on the site?