Company
Date Published
July 1, 2024
Author
Sarah Dayan
Word count
1695
Language
English
Hacker News points
None

Summary

The new search experience of the Algolia documentation brings a Spotlight/Alfred-like experience with a focus on user refinement, discovery, and confidence in picking results. The new design offers a list of results on the left and a preview panel on the right, allowing users to discover more about their search results before deciding whether to navigate to the associated resource or not. Autocomplete v1 is integrated with enhanced accessibility and full keyboard navigation support, making the process of refining queries seamless. Query suggestions are provided at the end of the results list to refine queries and yield better results. Quick filters allow users to explicitly pick filters directly from the search box without surprises. The experience also provides a welcoming and forgiving approach to handling 404 pages and no results, offering cues to discover results and confidently pick the right one. The new design is optimized for mobile devices, with features working on tablet and phone. A dynamic federated search experience relies on Algolia's powerful API to return the best matching results in record time, giving them more meaning with business code. Indexing has been redesigned to make it faster than ever, allowing for easier addition of new content types and improved performance.