LDS.org has upgraded its search tool.
The new search is smarter and is more precise in locating specific content.
Search results are clustered into categories like scriptures, magazines, manuals, hymns, or General Conference. You can then limit the results to these specific categories or even formats, like music or images.
To learn more about the new search, listen to the March LDSTech broadcast.
Try it, then let me know what you think.
Loading ...If you have suggestions for the new search, enter a comment below.
I like it a lot better than the previous search, except that I wish it were more compact. A lot of the church web sites seem to be optimized for large screen sizes. My screen is 1440×900. The window I’m browsing in is about 1250×800 (still pretty big) – but I can only see 3-4 results at a time. Ideally, what I’m searching for will be near the top, but I like to see more context of what surrounds the content and I don’t like constantly having to scroll. I think this is a design choice rather than a lack of planning – just a design choice that annoys me a bit 🙂 For example, the church web page on my iPhone 4 – the title fills most of the screen, especially on the scriptures pages, when I navigate to them. The iPhone has a set screen size, so this must be how it was designed, rather than the designers not thinking about screen sizes… But, anyway, the results of the new search and narrowing down results are much better 🙂 And I like being able to see member-submitted photos in the search, too!
It’s definitely a huge step forward. I agree with Samuel about only a few hits fitting on the screen. Perhaps they could make the excerpts short, and have a longer excerpt on mouseover.
Question: How can you sort by various criteria? What if I want to only get results from Presidents of the Church, or only in the 1970s?
I like not having to go through all the extra steps of filters and advanced search, However, you need to put something out to the general public about how to use the new Search. I’m on the Feedback Response Team and I get a steady flow of questions like the ones Nathan included in his comments. I’ve developed my own quick guide to use in my responses to help people out.
If there is more to learn about this search (and I really hope there is, because I can’t figure out how to filter the results like Nathan mentioned and order them the way I used to be able to and so far have far less useful than the old search) please put it in writing rather than just in a broadcast. I just need a quick reference.
I find “upgrades” that make a website’s function more difficult to use extremely irritating and frustrating. Using the old search page, I was able to set parameters such as who the speaker was or when the talk was given, and I was actually able to find what I was looking for most of the time. Not so with this new system. Now, there may be a way to do what I used to do with the old page, but you have done a good enough job of hiding it (perhaps in the interest of streamlining a web page as is the new trend) such that it is of no use to me. This is an unvoiced complaint of mine that has made me irritable for years–that the church’s website is continually being updated and upgraded and seemingly just changed for the sake of being changed, and I can never find what I am looking for. Just make a good product and let the good folks use it for a while instead of changing it all the time. Please. Sorry to let that all out.