NYU Libraries: Powering the Search for Improved User Experience

NYU Libraries wanted more control and insight to help website users quickly find the information they need. They chose the Elastic Site Search Service (formerly Swiftype Site Search) because of the extremely quick implementation times. Another benefit was the ability to customize the search experience based on analytics and insights. Now with a better search experience and a more prominent placement, search usage has increased significantly.

Before moving to the Elastic Site Search Service, the team didn’t have much control over search and virtually no insights, so they didn’t know what they were missing. Working with their CMS vendor, NYU Libraries was able to deploy Site Search in just one day, which opened the floodgates and exposed the analytics they were wanting.

“We didn’t know all of the things we could do until we deployed Site Search,” said Nadaleen. “We wanted to gather data to improve both the search experience and how we were presenting our content to the users.”

As part of a larger department, NYU Libraries defaulted to the search tool implemented by their parent organization. “Nyu.edu uses Google Site Search, so we were using that as our library’s site search,” explained Nadaleen Tempelman-Kluit, Head of User Experience at NYU Libraries. “We didn’t have a lot of ability to customize the search, so we wanted to move away from that and get our own solution. We wanted to have more control.”

They were looking for a way to increase case-deflection and decrease their support burden with better search. They wanted more control and insights to help website users quickly find the information they need.

Now with a better search experience and a more prominent placement, search usage has increased significantly. But more than just the metrics, it’s the basics they were previously missing that’s really helped them improve the overall user experience.