Don't Cut Corners and Hope that Search Software Will be Perfect

Any developer who has worked with search technology should know that searchingis far from perfect and it will never be a perfect solution.  This is because we are the ones who make mistakes in preparring items for searchability and everyone wants search to work perfectly for their narrow use case.  A ComputerWorld article” showed that even Google's email searching that was used internally had problems showing users what the most up-to-date version was for similar emails.  ArnoldIT had some observations related to this article:

1. "Search is software and software are flawed, often deeply. Humans, also flawed, have to spend time preparing, indexing, reviewing, and searching for relevant content. There’s no app for that, at least not one that will keep a Gen Y out of an orange jump suit."
2. "Speed or the assumption that go fast is the ideal mode for work is pretty silly. Hurrying causes lots of problems..."
3. "Ignoring the grunt work is not a good idea. Finding, analyzing, reviewing, and preparing data are a problem in many, many organizations."
4. "Search remains a difficult task. Those who ignore its complexity are likely to enjoy some exciting times in their work career. In short, a bright smile is no substitute for doing one’s information and analysis job."

--Stephen Arnold


Stephen wanted to let business people know that search does not work the way they think it does in the ComputerWorld article.  You could substitute terms like eDiscovery, text mining, or metatagging for search he says.

Source: http://arnoldit.com/wordpress/2011/11/01/the-perils-of-searching-in-a-hurry