Ubiquitous Enterprise Search: New Design Approaches for Mobile and Tablet
The rise of smart phones and tablets is an unprecedented opportunity for enterprise search to escape traditional limits and become the single best way to access all enterprise information. It has the ability to bring search to where the business processes and decisions actually happen, in real-time, connecting your employees with vital enterprise resources and with each other. New features enabled by mobile devices include geo-location, still image and video input, voice search and unprecedented personalization. Yet mobile search also juggles some crushing constraints: limited screen real estate, fat fingers, slow and spotty connections, multi-tasking and shortened attention span, all of which dictate careful consideration of the design of search interface. Lessons from ecommerce and other consumer-oriented mobile designs will provide practical strategies on managing the high-risk mobile search investment and growing the scope of enterprise search offerings.