About a month and a half ago, I did an ecommerce usability review on search page attributes. It’s about time for a bit of a follow up on that. So this round, I’m offering a look at advanced search pages. Unfortunately, there aren’t that many of them left any more. But we’ll give it a shot.

I really like this Abe Books advanced search page. Book ecommerce Web sites, as you will see, remain the last strong bastion of what are considered “advanced search pages.”

You can see all the great search options that allow you to narrow it down to exactly what you are looking for. No searching through pages of results of nothing more than vague keyword matches. Some other features of this advanced search page include:

• Fully navigable to the rest of the Web site.
• Ability to look at top search terms (for inspiration).
• Capability of sorting results how you want them (price, relevance, etc.)
• Various options uniquely applicable to the ecommerce business.

This sort of page makes online ecommerce shopping much easier and more enjoyable.

Barnes and Noble also offers a good advanced search page. I especially like the tabbed advanced search, allowing you to search different types of media.

I like that Chapters.indigo.ca offers tips for more effective search on its advanced search page.

One thing that I’ve been finding in terms of advanced search pages is that they are becoming rare among ecommerce Web sites. Out of the top Web sites for usability, very few had the advanced search option. Instead, the “refine search” option is taking its place. This PC Connection page is a good example of how “refined search” is taking over.

You can see, above, how off to the side all of the fields that might be included on advanced search pages to narrow things down a bit are included. You can choose categories, and you can choose how to sort the search results from a sidebar. Of course, this means that you have to type in broad keywords to get to a starting point, and then narrow it down.

Coach offers search that I am not terribly fond of. It just flops of pictures of everything that matches, with no attempt to refine further. I do like all the images, which make it easy to instantly see whether you like something, but it is hard to narrow the results.

Below, see more examples of advanced search pages, and “refined search” options. Which do you prefer? Would you rather start broad and work from there? Or would you rather narrow the search immediately? With too much narrowing, I think, there is the possibility that you could miss something that you would otherwise find when you start broad.

Abt

Ace Hardware

Amazon

Apple

Art.com

Audible

Brooks Brothers

Bulbs

Drugstore.com

FYE

Gap

Home Depot

HP Shopping

Kohls

Oneida