NBC - Integrated search
Client
Northern Beaches Council
My role
UX designer
Deliverables
Search strategy, results page design, filters, best bets, analytics plan
Platform
Public website and online services
Overview
After the website redesign, search was the next biggest source of frustration. Residents searched for "DA tracker", "green bin" or "Manly pool" and got three separate answers depending on whether they were on the website, the online services portal or the library catalogue.
This project designed one integrated search that pulls results from every council system into a single, ranked, easy-to-scan experience.
The challenge
- Content lived in six systems: CMS, online services, events, library, planning register and document store.
- Each system had its own search with different ranking, so the same query gave different answers in different places.
- The top queries were transactional ("pay rates") but results were dominated by news and PDFs.
- Location mattered: "pool" means a different thing in Manly than in Mona Vale.
Research
Query analysis
Clustered twelve months of search logs into intents: do something, find a place, find a document, find an event, contact someone.
Results audit
Ran the top 100 queries through each system and scored the first page of results against the intent.
Resident testing
Task-based testing of the existing searches to see where people gave up and what they tried next.
Content owner workshops
Agreed on what "good" looked like for each content type and who would maintain best bets.
Design
One box, one results page
A single search box appears in the header of every council property, and every query lands on the same results page. Results are blended and ranked by intent, not by source system, and each result carries a small type label (service, page, event, location, document) so people can scan quickly.
Best bets for top tasks
For the transactional queries that never change, a curated "best bet" card sits above the organic results with a direct action, for example "Pay your rates" with a pay-now button. Content owners manage these from a simple list, informed by the search analytics dashboard.
Filters that match how people think
- By type. Services, pages, events, places, documents, people.
- By place. Suburb and facility filters, with location-aware ranking on mobile.
- By date. Events and council meetings only, kept out of the way otherwise.
Zero results, redesigned
A no-results page no longer says "no results". It shows spelling suggestions, the most popular services, and a direct link to the contact centre with the query already filled in.
Outcome
Integrated search launched across the website and online services, and the same approach was reused for the staff intranet homepage. The analytics dashboard gives content owners a weekly list of failing queries, so the search keeps getting better without another project.