

This curve has been refined by further research, but the basic idea remains the same: we forget new information unless it’s reinforced. Through repeated memorization and testing, he determined a mathematical curve that describes how well something is retained over time. You read the docs, think of interesting applications for it, then the next time that you need to use it, you’ve forgotten what it’s called.Īs early as 1885, German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus ran experiments where he memorized strings of nonsense syllables, then tested himself on how much he could recall. Consider coming across a new function, keyword, or property. This happens mostly with new information that you’re trying to remember. Transience refers to memories that just don’t stick. For our inquiry into the case of the purple links, we’re interested in just two: Transience and absent-mindedness. Professor of Psychology at Harvard, Daniel Schacter details seven ways that our memories fail us. In the book, The Seven Sins of Memory, the William R. Our memories are more flawed and imperfect than we would like to believe. This sort of forgetting-if even the information made it into memory in the first place-is extremely common. It may be that they didn’t even know that they had this problem in the past. These seem to indicate that the person searching forgot that they even knew the solution previously. There’s another pair of reactions to searching and finding a purple link: irritation and amusement (there’s also 18% who feel indifference strongly enough to select it on a survey). Designing a navigation system that can bring you to a specific page without using search or bookmarks is incredibly hard. This is pretty common for sites with a lot of content, especially user-generated content, like Stack Overflow. Ah, hello, old friend, this is the exact answer I was looking for. You could enter the same search terms and look for the first purple link. Perhaps it’s an excellent answer to a programming question that you found in a quick search and want to find again. Some estimate that 10% of all searches are navigational.īut some of these navigational searches are about returning to a page that you initially found via search. I have absolutely typed “stack overflow” into a search bar and hit return, and I’m sure I’m not alone. Once search became automatically part of the address bar, it often was easier to search for the name of the site than enter the URL. Navigational queries are intended to reach a specific site. You’re not looking for a specific site from which to order these things, so any will do so long as it gets you sweet, sweet Thai food.
LINK IT ANSWERS MOVIE
Buying movie tickets or ordering pad thai all fall under this kind of search. Transactional searches are where the user expects to get to a site to do something else. I’m looking for something new I’m going to click on the link that looks like it best addresses my concern. Informational searches are when I want to know something, like the number of quarts in a gallon or the names of all the monsters in the original Destroy All Monsters.


In search of old friendsĮarly web search engine Altavista discovered that there were three primary types of search queries: informational, transactional, and navigational.

This article will explore some of the research around both of them. There are basically two things going on here: navigational search and memory imperfections. We asked developers how they feel when they search for a coding solution online and the first result link is purple because they already visited the link. Maybe you don’t even remember having this problem before, much less what the solution was. We found that when you find that the top link is purple-that is, already clicked- 52% of you think, “Hello, old friend.” But another 14% see that purple link with irritation and another 16% see it with amusement. Sometimes, you find your search turns up a purple line, which means that you’ve already searched for this problem in the past. Not everybody goes right to the site for answers we get that a lot of you find answers through your search engine of choice. We here at Stack Overflow are flattered that we are your go to place for answers in our 2020 Developer Survey, 90% of you said you turn to Stack Overflow when you are stuck.
