Healthcare.gov auto-suggest

Like many web sites, Healthcare.gov's search feature provides auto-suggest drop downs based on other users' search terms. (Healthcare.gov uses the Google Search Appliance.)

This kind of feature can be useful in helping users phrase their questions and find what they seek. Collecting search history can also provide useful information to those operating a site about the inquiries of their users. If a site doesn't provide content related to their users' searching, auto-suggest based on popular queries may just help people get to no help quicker.

Let's take a look at searches being performed on Healthcare.gov.

What happen's if I start with "what"?




Those look like reasonable "what" questions. Let's look at results for the first one.



Dental plan info. Job-based insurance. A one-page guide. More employer insurance. Part timer. Hmm. I don't see anything obviously related to the suggested query "what if i dont buy insurance".

The results for the suggested query aren't quite what I expected. I would have expected the results to include something about the penalties for not buying insurance.

Let me try asking it "what" again.



Hmm. This time I get a slightly different set of suggestions for "what". What's up with that?



Not much luck with "what". Let's try "who".




Again, these look like questions I'd expect people to ask. Let's see what results I get for the first suggestion: "who can apply for coverage".



It seems to be providing results for "how", not "who".

I ask "who" again. Once again, I get a different set of suggestions. There appears to be two different sets of suggestions for each auto-suggest look-up.

Let's try "when".

Good question. When does coverage start?



Hey, I think I see something relevant in the results. The 3rd item appears to be relevant. I'm not so sure about the others.


As before, let's see what happens if I ask "when" again.



As before, I get a different set of suggestions than I got from my first query. There seem to be many ways to ask when coverage starts. I wonder if they all return the same results.  I'll try that later. If you want to know, you'll have to give it a try on your own.

It does appear that the search engine could use some tuning. Or maybe the folks at Healthcare.gov need to add some help documents that answer the questions people are commonly asking -- the questions that Healthcare.gov is suggesting others also ask.



One last thing. Let's see if anyone been trying to inject SQL or other code into the search feature.

I type a single quote.




I then try a semi-colon.




If people are trying to inject code into the search engine, I suspect some are also trying similar attacks in other parts of the system.

@QualityFrog At least it looks like somebody's testing...lol. Not sure 'suggesting' random previous searches is wise pic.twitter.com/ppqGR0EU4G
— NotJoeInOhio (@NotJoeInOhio) November 13, 2013

I think Not Joe may have a point.

---

UPDATE 11/19: It appears that the search suggestions have been disabled. Given the more important issues that the Healthcare.gov people need to address, this is probably a good quick fix to showing unhelpful suggestions. However, I encourage the people at Healthcare.gov to use the search history to better understand their clientele so that they can tune the search engine and create relevant content. Perhaps they are already doing this.

Bing, why you so silly?

This morning, Bing began returning some odd search results. So, I then tried searching for some things for which I had some expectations for results.



How about HP Quality Center? Bing certainly has something about Quality Center. In fact, it was my looking for licensing information that started my questioning of Bing's results. Not what I expected.





So, I continued my testing with "testing". Certainly Bing can direct me to some web pages about testing.

Kiwi mold removal.

Bigfoot.

American Society for Nondestructive Testing.

Obama.

Moolya Software Testing!

While I'm sure my friends at Moolya would be pleased to be on the first page of search results for "testing", something doesn't seem right with these results.





Perhaps I need to be more specific about what kind of testing I seek. After all, testing is a very broad topic.

I try to narrow it down with "agile testing".

Hmm... Perhaps the folks at Microsoft aren't familiar with agile testing.

And, I'm certainly not interested in going to Alaska for some agile uterus or prostate testing.





Now, what's something else for which I've previously seen results? Oh, yeah; the Lewis and Clark expedition. Perhaps Bing can help me explore the web for information about these explorers.

Hmm... Not what I expected. And, I don't think I can find them on MyLife.





Given that Bing doesn't seem to know much about testing or exploration, I wonder if they know anything about their founders. So, I search for "microsoft founder".  Bing says "No results found for microsoft founder."  However, in spite of having no results, it does see fit to tell me that Bill Gates and Paul Allen are the founders of Microsoft.

I expected a few more links when asking Bing about its founders.





So, if Bing has so little information about its founders, I wonder what it knows about me.

It seems to have found my Facebook profile; and apparently, I am on sale at Yahoo! Shopping: "Amazing Deals on Ben Simo".





So, what might Bing know about? Let's try something a bit less intellectual.

Sorry, "No results found for fart."

Perhaps, I should try some related searches. Bing suggests "Loud Farts", or "Listen to Farts", or "Do Lizards Fart". I always wanted to know if lizards fart, but I think I'll first click the link to see Regis Philbin fart. That's the high quality web content I seek when I use Bing.





These results are making me think I must be the victim of a cruel joke.

So, while I'm thinking of jokes and farts, I put them together.

Again, Bing disappoints. It has no results for fart jokes. Instead, Bing trys to show me fat jokes. It doesn't even have any of those; unless the Raspberry Ketone Diet is a fat joke.

Why is

Multiple items were found for your search

Multiple items were found for my search? I didn't search for anything. I clicked a link to view my shopping cart and checkout.

Please select the item? There's only one item in my cart -- the one item I put there. I already selected one of the item and placed it in my cart. Why should I have to make a selection of one from a list of one when I already selected what I want?

Searching for Search

The search box on Amazon appears to have disappeared. I can't find it.

Oh, there it is. I was expecting something a bit larger.

Perhaps try a different search?

It doesn't seem to matter what search I try. Nearly all TwitPic searches return a "No images found" error -- even those for which I know there are recent image posts with tags or comment that match my search criteria. Occasionally I hit on a search term that hits a single image, but nearly all attempts return no results.

Your search did not match any document

While installing software, I encounter the following error.



I open up a web browser and go to Google and search for the name of the file in the error message.



Google says it found nothing. What!? There's a Windows system file for which Google can find nothing on the web!?

And why am I presented with an option to select pages from no results?

It seems Google was temporarily broken. After a few retries, I get results. Go ahead. Try it. What do you get?

No data is ever transferred to our server

How can Twipho.net search Twitter for images without transferring data to their server? It appears they may be able to do that; however, the browser still transfers data to their server.

In spying on the network traffic, it does appear that the client (the browser) sends requests directly to to Twitter's search API, and client-side Javascript processes the results. However, any entered search terms are also sent to http://www.twipho.net/search.php, which returns a 404 (Not found) error.

Fan Search Blows

Sitting in the house on a hot June evening, I realize that our window fans aren't quite moving enough air through the house. So, I decide to check out some local retailers' web sites to see what fans they may have available.  From the home page of each site, I submit a search for "window fan". These are all retailers that have had window fans in their stores in the past.


The Home Depot site returns a handful of fans followed by some air conditioners.  Although I don't see quite what I'm seeking, these results seem relevant.





The Lowe's site returns one window fan followed by a bunch of doors -- doors with windows in them.  Not quite what I expected.  I expected Lowe's to have more than one window fan option.





The Target site shows me several window fans and some curtains.  While I didn't expect curtains to be the number two result, I do see a selection of fans.





The Walmart site results are just bizarre: one "window fan" for a tent, and dozens of sport team flags.





Is there a problem here? While I don't expect each retailer to sell the exact same models of window fans, I expected to see a bit more consistency and relevancy in the search results.

Now, who puts a fan in a tent?

-1 results

"Was searching for iiNet vista sidebar widget... got -1 results found.. Microsoft Live search is fantastic."  - @mainfram

Keep waiting?

@edfladung: great error messages from movable type, how 5 years ago is this?


An error occurred. Is the error that the user is performing a search? Or did an error occur in performing the search? Should the user keep waiting for an erroneous search to complete?

The world is a very unpredictable place

"This is the error message I just received on Vox. Why thank you Vox for my Monday morning life lesson." - sorayaleila

Please try again at a later time or right now

@yinteractive: What a nonsensical error message from Facebook


I choose right now.

Windows cannot find '(null)'

I did not type any name. I'm waiting for Firefox to install an update.

Is null required to update Firefox?  If null is nothing, then why should Windows expect to find it?  Or maybe '(null)' isn't really null, but something like null. ;-)

Internet Explorer requires Internet Explorer?

Alan Simkins reports:

Attempting to add a search provider (Google) to the list, using their standard page gives an ‘error on page’ error. However, there is a facility to add your own providers to the list.


Using this facility evokes the following error message:



Nice to know, but what’s the point??

There are no items to show

I receive a daily digest email from a mailing list that I don't care to follow right now. Wanting to delete this and all the other emails recently received from this list, I right click on the message in Outlook, then select the option to find all messages from the sender.



The Outlook Advanced Find window opens and the little magnifying glass moves in circles indicating that a search is being performed. It then displays "There are no items to show in this view." where I expect to see search results.



How can there be no items to show? At the very least, the email I right-clicked to search by sender exists in my inbox. I try other searches and they work. I repeat this search and it still returns no results.

There is a problem here.

Hilfe und Support kann nicht geöffnet werden

Tweeted by @Rewur

Windows Search, auf Deutsche.

Says "Follow the instructions on the left side, to start the search." at the top of the window.

"Help and Support can not be opened because a system service is not executed.

Run 'help and support' to resolve this issue."

If it knows what is wrong, why doesn't Windows start the service on its own; or at least give the user a dialog response option to start the service? Why isn't the service running? Are Windows users expected to know where and how to start and stop services?

Choose a Department

I'm looking for a book. I go to Amazon perform a search based on the author's name. I don't see what I'm looking for on the first page of results and want to change the sorting of the results. Instead of a sort option, there's a Department link with a message stating "Choose a Department to enable sorting." So I click the link to select a department.

Wow! So many options. I guess I'll select Books.

My search only returned results in one Department. Why did I have to select one of the one departments to sort?

Is there a problem here? Am I expecting too much to think the Amazon search engine might show me sortable book results if all the results for my search are books? Might sending me to book results create a new problem?