SRC101 Introduction to Search #365EDUCon

Microsoft Search is looking to bring the search experiences across
all Microsoft 365 services together into a single unified
experience. Attend this session to learn how the experience
impacts your users, how you can configure it as well as scenarios
where you should customize it.
INTRODUCTION TO SEARCH SRC101

SPEAKER | AUTHOR | SUPER GOOD LOOKING
KANWAL KHIPPLE, CEO
@kkhipple
bit.ly/linkedinkk
2014 2015

KANWAL KHIPPLE, CEO
@kkhipple
bit.ly/linkedinkk
2014 2015
SPEAKER | AUTHOR | SUPER SANTA WHITE BEARD

Agenda
Microsoft Search
Pitfalls
Solutions

Where’s the science
Industry Insights

Although some analysts previously questioned the finding of search dominance, it's a user behavior that gets stronger
every year. Today, many users are so reliant on search that it's undermining their problem-solving abilities.
Ironically, the better search gets, the more dangerous it gets as people increasingly assume that whatever the
search engine coughs up must be the answer.
The undeniable role of Search in our daily lives
1b 14b 55b 73b
365b
1.2t
2t
1999 2000 2001 2004 2009 2012 2016
1 Search Engine Land “Google now handles at least 2 trillion searches per year”
3.5 billion
every day

The undeniable influence of other sites on your design
What is it?
Users spend most of their time on sites other than yours. This means that
users prefer your site to work the same way as the sites they already use
and know.
What does this mean?
By leveraging existing mental models, we can design more
successful user experiences by reusing patterns for which users
are accustomed and allowing them to focus on their tasks.
With a 92% market share, the elephant in the room here is
Google. Specifically, users’ mental models for how search
and search features work will be heavily shaped by
their experience with Google (or with the dominant search
engine in their country), so your own site-search features should
cater to the expectations created by the big search engines.

Twelve years of innovation and evolution at a glance
2009 2021

The modern way to process complex search layouts is non-linear
In the old days of web search, users would reliably focus
their attention on the first few results at the top of the
page and would sequentially move from result to result
down the list. That linear SERP pattern still exists today,
but it’s the exception rather than the rule.
As the complexity of the SERP has grown, people’s
attention is distributed across the page.
In a pinball pattern, the user scans a results page in a
highly nonlinear path, bouncing around between
results and SERP features. With the high cost-benefit
and often eye-catching nature of these features, our
mental models have adapted to balance our
attention between “organic results” and SERP
features as a more effective and reliable means to
getting the answer we need.

SRC101 Introduction to Search #365EDUCon

Three key Search Engine Results Pages (SERP) features we see today
Featured Snippets
People Also Ask
Knowledge Panel

The impact of google on our users and their brains
Search features like those discussed have an impact on user behaviour by:
1. Acting as a signpost: Things like images or video thumbnails enables users to quickly verify the results are relevant
2. Directing the user’s attention: Humans do a continuous cost–benefit analysis to decide whether the interaction
cost of scanning or clicking on a result is worth their time. Users have learned that most of the time the SERP features
contain the answers they’re looking for (thus, they have a high benefit) and they involve little interaction cost, because
they don’t require an extra click, reading lengthy content, or leaving the current view
3. Modifying queries and tasks: We know that most users are terrible at generating alternate search strategies. But
through SERP features, Google can present several expanded interpretations of the query in natural language and
allow the user to explore those alternatives without leaving the page.
4. Providing quick answers: In cases where users have a simple information need, SERP features can provide a quick
and easy answer. If users want an address, phone number, or definition, there’s no need for them to click to through to
visit a site. Good abandonment occurs when users finds their answer on a SERP and decide to end their task
successfully.
Features like these are impacting the mental models of our user base, and therefore finding similar
patterns is important for us to consider in the context of Microsoft365.

Improving Findability
Industry Insights

Design challenges within the Digital Workspace
Search and navigation work hand in hand to promote information findability. As content footprints grow and complexity,
findability becomes an increasingly challenging problem to resolve for end users.
Where Do We See Challenges?
As Microsoft continues to expand the scope and scale of functionality within its suite, this can sometimes leave core user
experiences strained or stretched. Furthermore, many companies struggle in effectively implementing what is available.
Search
Navigation Search

How users seek information
“I know little to nothing about
what I am looking for”
“I’m hopeful the information exists
but don’t know how to find it.”
Knowledge Possessed
Little
Discover Mode
Expected Speed
Slow
Guidance Required
Much
“I know a good deal about what I
am looking for”
“I know what I need exists and
exactly how to find it.”
Knowledge Possessed
Much
Search Mode
Expected Speed
Fast
Guidance Required
None
“I know something about what I
am looking for.
“I know what I need exists but I’m
unsure exactly how to find it.”
Knowledge Possessed
Some
Browse Mode
Expected Speed
Moderate
Guidance Required
Some

Design challenges posed by search
Led by innovation on the web, users are becoming increasingly reliant
on search.
The convenience of searching on mobile, coupled with faster internet speeds and
more sophisticated devices, have acclimated people to getting exactly what they
want, where they want, and when they want it.
In our daily lives, search has become friction-less, and as a result, expectations
have risen dramatically.

End User
Search should “just work”
Search should be easy
Search results should be
relevant and personalized
Search should provide answers to
our questions, not just more links

Search in SharePoint has a long history of delivering poorly designed and executed search experiences,
leading to a frustrated user base often preferring to avoid its use altogether. In many cases, these issues actually
stemmed from content issues, information architecture issues, or user training issues. However, it also suffered from
its fair share of design issues.
In fact, even today, when interviewing users during a current state review it remains the #1 most common
complaint.
We know search is important, let’s look at the costs of getting it wrong:
Wasted time
searching for
content
Demotivated
employees
Increased
service costs
Increased risk
Wasted time
recreating
content
Uninformed
decisions
Loss of
confidence in
the platform

Search only succeeds if it is designed in a way that
allows users to consume a lot of information very
quickly. Put plainly, our goal is to realize the most
benefit (best results) with the least effort possible.
If users don’t see immediate evidence that their search
is yielding good results, they quickly abandon the
solution and look for alternate means to find the
information. Once trust in search is lost, it is
incredible challenging to get it back.
Effort
Value

AGENDA
Microsoft Search
Pitfalls
Solutions

What’s available
Search Offerings

Modern
Classic
Microsoft Search was initially released with little to no configurability at launch but is slowly seeing an
increasing number of ways to tweak and customize to a company’s unique needs.

Vision: A consolidated approach across the Microsoft stack
Microsoft Search One capability.
Every search experience.
in Bing
in Office.com
in SharePoint
in Edge
in Windows
in PowerPoint
in Outlook
in OneDrive
in Stream
in Yammer
in Word
in Teams
in OneNote
Microsoft Graph + Bing technology

A much more consistent search across Microsoft

A search engine underlying all your applications

With Bing, authenticated users can search for external and internal content using a single Search
experience.

A centralized dashboard for all search telemetry across your environment, allowing you to
optimize results and address problems proactively.

Allow site owners to drill down into site-specific reports to see what their users are
looking for.

Microsoft Graph gleans insights from the people, sites and documents you work with, and ranks search
results relevant to your needs. You'll still be able to see all the results that satisfy your query, but
personalized search will prioritize the results that are most likely to achieve your objective.

Search will adapt to the context of the user to focus or broaden their search results
From
Microsoft 365 Home
From
SharePoint Home
From
SharePoint site

Results cards are tailored to the type of content they are attempting to surface. Searching for people via the
consolidated Microsoft Search delivers a fairly consistent experience across Microsoft 365 (and even Windows).
This helps with change management efforts and is aligned with the Microsoft roadmap of providing a
consolidated experience.

Searching for people via the consolidated Microsoft Search also links users to the common people ‘card’
experience used throughout the M365 ecosystem, and SharePoint in particular.

Results cards are tailored to the type of content they are attempting to surface

Preset verticals assist with finding common, specific types of content across the organization

What’s configurable
Search Offerings

Giving you the ability to define and surface organizational acronyms

You can define and surface organizational promoted results bookmarks

Defining and surfacing organizational FAQs

Defining and surfacing organizational locations (buildings, rooms, etc.)

Add more relevant organizational properties to your people results
Add any of the following attributes to be displayed from AAD:
 UserPrincipalName
 Fax
 StreetAddress
 PostalCode
 StateOrProvince
 Alias
Add up to 15 additional custom attributes from AD or AAD.

Modify the default contextual search behaviour for sites (home, hub or site)
Set-PnPSearchSettings (PnP.Powershell) | Microsoft Docs

Search and locate images easily. Tags embedded in image files are preserved, and authors can
add their own tags to images.
search examines
images at upload time
and automatically
assigns keywords to
them. Currently the
auto tagging only
supports a small list of
30 “basic tags”.

search for Power BI artifacts (reports, dashboards, workspaces) based on keywords
to get results list displayed in a new PowerBI vertical.

Adding custom data sources to integrate your third-party content. Integrate results from supported third
party data sources, or create your own custom data sources
Microsoft Graph Connectors

You can add search verticals that are relevant to your organization. These will appear on the Microsoft
Search results page in SharePoint, Office, and Bing.
For example, you could create a vertical for marketing-related
content and another for sales, based on the type of information that
each group needs. You can add verticals to show results only from
content indexed via custom connectors.
Manage Verticals and result Types

You can design the result layout for a custom vertical using the search layout designer. You can start
designing the layout by choosing templates offered in the layout designer and using them if they fit
your requirements
Microsoft Search Layout Designer

Group results from the same source in a single block Result clusters help users discover all third party content in
one place. The results shown in a result cluster are grouped together based on the search vertical configuration.

Search your organizational assets using Edge mobile

A search engine underlying all your applications
Content Sources:
• Microsoft 365 core services: Bookings, Calendar, Delve, Excel, Microsoft 365
compliance eDiscovery, Microsoft Search, OneDrive, OneNote,
Outlook/Exchange, People (Outlook contacts), Planner, SharePoint, Teams, To
Do, Workplace Analytics.
• Enterprise Mobility and Security services: Advanced Threat Analytics, Advanced
Threat Protection, Azure Active Directory, Identity Manager, and Intune.
• Windows 10 services: activities, devices, notifications, Universal Print.
• Dynamics 365 Business Central.
Configurability:
• Low
Microsoft
Search
Graph
Powered by
… more
Content Sources:
• SharePoint (i.e., Sites, Pages, Documents, Items)
Configurability:
• High
SharePoint
Search
vs

What’s coming
Search Offerings

Favorite search features that are either In Development or Rolling Out.
Personal Query History (GA)
As you start typing in the search box, you will see suggested searches and results based on your previous activity in Microsoft 365 and based on content that’s trending in your
organization. Personal query history will show the queries you have previously used. These personal query suggestions are served from your personal search history. Personal query
suggestions are a quick way to get back to results you've found before.
Custom filters on native verticals (Feb 2022)
New support for custom filters on native verticals in Microsoft Search allows you to customize out of the box verticals for Microsoft Search by adding custom refiners.
Custom result types in Microsoft Search (May 2022)
New support for custom result types allows you to create result types with modern display templates with adaptive cards for SharePoint content (PDF, sites, pages and lists) for
SharePoint home and sites, Office.com and Bing.com.
Source https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/roadmap

Using natural language capabilities to simplify search
coming soon

Using natural language capabilities to simplify search
Sample Queries
 PMs I met with recently
 Who is Ying’s skip level?
 Who knows about Typography?
 Files Kathy shared with me last week
 Engineers in London Available now
By making the search experience more user friendly, we can
reduce time in effort involved in:
 Reformulating queries
 Applying filters
 Scrolling through results

pattern that lets you zoom in on a person to view, explore, and search the enterprise graph around her or
him. This has the dual purpose of enabling you to find content through people, and to understand people
through their content.
coming soon

Searching with people at the focus

A new action menu with search results will allow an item not only to be opened in the web experience, but
directly opened in the client application, downloaded, shared or copy the link to the item.

People-centric search is a pattern that lets you zoom in on a person to view, explore, and search the
enterprise graph around her or him. This has the dual purpose of enabling you to find content through
people, and to understand people through their content.
coming soon

introducing new capabilities in profile enrichment where you can directly enrich user profiles with information
from HRMS systems like Workday, SAP SuccessFactors and more using Microsoft Graph connectors
coming soon

customize out of the box verticals for Microsoft Search, add custom refiners and
create new verticals for SharePoint content.
coming soon

Identifying root causes to search problems
Often times it is content bad practices that plague the efficacy of Search
 Poor naming conventions
– Content is difficult to find due to jargon, abbreviations or other bad practices
 Poor search scoping
– Search is scoped to too much/too little content and therefore users feel that information is missing
 Poor security practices
– People have access to too much information, or too little
 Poor content publishing practices
– Rather than relying on best practices for version control, multiple copies of a document are saved
 Missing content lifecycle processes
– Old/outdated content is not archived or moved when it is no longer broadly useful
 Limited metadata
– Search relevancy is hampered by inaccurate, poorly designed, or missing metadata

What are we hearing
Industry Insights

End User
Search is difficult, confusing
or overly complicated to use
Search is yielding
too many results
Search is yielding
the wrong results
Search is yielding results
that are out of date

Communicator
Search is yielding results
without appropriate context, so
even if my content is found, users
don’t have confidence they have
found the right thing
Search is not elevating my
more important content
It’s not always easy to understand
what needs to be done to content
to make it easily searchable

Administrator
Search does not include results
from our other core systems
Search is difficult to offer
in multiple languages
Search does not offer built-in
methods to flag problems
Search requires maintenance and
expertise to remain optimized

Where do we still see gaps?
Search Offerings

The search box context behaves contextually which is nice in theory but also means a user needs to
consciously consider where they are searching from every time they want to run a search (high interaction
cost).
Challenge
The helper text is a good idea but it’s easy to miss, disappears when you type, and has labels
that not all users will find (e.g., “Search across sites”).

An extension of the search box problem is the search box suggestions. Once typing begins we further lose
sight of what we are searching against.
Challenges
While a good Search UX technique, you can see here that it
adds to the lack of context clarity.

While the breadcrumb is a common UI element, it is not one that many users are
accustomed to seeing (or using) in the SEPR context.
Challenges
As a result, most users seem to miss it in
the context of Search Results pages and
certainly do not have an intuitive sense
of what effect this may have on the
results they are seeing.

It is possible to override a site’s search scope but it can only be changed to Hub or Tenant levels, leaving
a wide gap for environments where content spans multiple hubs.
Challenges
In these cases we have to choose
between too little content, and too much.

You have the ability to configure key corporate ‘assets’ like People, Locations, Bookmarks (best bets) at the
organizational level. What happens when organizational-based results are relevant for site based search
Challenges
 Key corporate ‘assets’ like People,
Locations, Bookmarks (best bets)
don’t show up unless you are at the
organizational level.

Out of the box refiners are incredibly limited.
Challenges
It is difficult to offer tailored search
experiences leveraging enterprise
metadata to help users filter and sort
through pre-defined verticals.

People don’t necessarily know where things live but more importantly, labels like “whole organization” are
not necessarily clear.
Challenges
Especially on an intranet, people
expect to be able to search for
things like Locations and People –
it’s a traditional type of content you
would find there.
Intranets also want to project that
“its content” is authoritative and
approved, and sometimes pulling
content in very broadly works
against that desire.

One of the biggest complaints we hear about search is that it brings back multiple
copies of the same thing – eroding trust in the system.
Challenges
Users don’t have an easy way to
report what they are seeing is a
problem, and it it’s not easy, no
one will do it.

The people card is overall a really great experience.
Challenges
Many limitations in adding
custom enterprise properties to a
user’s profile.
Additional attributes can be
displayed, but they are not
searchable.
SharePoint profile properties are
disconnected from the new
experience and painful to update

Microsoft Search utilizes a complex ranking model driven by Graph and artificial intelligence which draws
upon a host of data points to make results relevant and helpful.
Challenges
The relevancy model cannot be
configured in a systemic way
other than via ad-hoc overrides

Answers
via Admin
Scopes,
Redirects
& Visibility
via PS
Refiners
Not available
Verticals,
Ranking &
Connectors
via Admin
Custom
Cards
Navigating solutions based on complexity
Search
ootb
Targeted
Solution
“as is”
Search
Replacement
PnP Modern v4
Custom
Connector
custom
ootb configuration
Complexity
Custom
Web Part
Targeted
Extended
Solution
via Handlebar
or Extensibility

Experiences for discovering
Solutions

There are options to ensure users are aware and continually reminded to use the tailored experience.
On landing pages
surfacing other core
content, add a clear
call out to your new
experience to ensure
users have an easy
path to it.

If this is an organizational
resource, add a bookmark
to ensure users can take
advantage of this new
experience.
This complements
Note: Recommend setting
intranet search scopes to
Organizational to ensure
this is seen more readily.

If this is a site specific
resource, consider
redirecting search queries
to your custom search
results page rather than
the default experience.

Experiences for browsing
Solutions

Experiences that allow the end user to easily browse to what they need
When to Use
 Allows users to filter by one
primary refiner via simple
buttons
 Simple design leverages out of
the box web parts
 Suitable for lower volumes of
content which is easily
accessible by even unfamiliar
end users
 Suitable for content that resides
in a single Document Library
 Suitable for a targeted
application
Filter by primary vertical
using a list web part with
dynamic filtering
enabled.
Document Library to
surface all policies that
reacts dynamically to
filtering

Experiences that allow the end user to easily browse to what they need
Design
 Evolution of the previous
example which allows for the
expansion of an item to see
additional properties
 Allows users to filter by one
primary refiner via simple
buttons
 Simple design leverages out of
the box web parts
 Suitable for lower volumes of
content which is easily accessible
by average end users
 Suitable for content that resides
in a single Document Library
 Suitable for a targeted
application
Item properties to show
relevant information
about the policy
without leaving the
page.

Experiences for searching
Solutions

The PnP 'Modern Search' solution is a set of SharePoint Online modern Web Parts allowing SharePoint
super users, webmasters and developers to create highly flexible and personalized search based
experiences in minutes.

With tailored experiences
like those above in place,
administrator can
ensure search queries
from the now persistent
search box can redirect
users to the desired page

Highlights
 Easy to deploy
 Highly customizable
 Scope of content
 Layout of results
 Sorting of results
 Modular
 Results can be displayed with or without:
 Search box
 Verticals
 Filters
 Multilingual
 Support for localization with the correct configuration
 Can be aligned with multilingual page publishing
 Common Architectural Patterns
 Relies on classic concepts like Result Sources and Managed Properties
Solving design challenges posed by search
A highly versatile solution with many advantages
Considerations
 If not managed, can be seen as competing with Microsoft
Search, creating a disjointed experience
 Requires some knowledge to initially set up
 Some planning required to support multilingual
 More elegant/tailored displays require template
manipulation

My twitter handle is @kkhipple and I work at
Thank You!
Organizers, Sponsors and You for making this possible.
100+ SharePoint Presentations @ Slideshare.Net/kkhipple
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External Sharing w/ Office 365 Whitepaper @ Office365Extranets.com
and more!
Message Me On LinkedIn or Email Kanwal@2toLead.com
SPEAKER | AUTHOR | SUPER GOOD LOOKING

SRC101 Introduction to Search #365EDUCon

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