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Re: where should be the default focus on search resultpage?

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From: Patrick Lauke
Date: Dec 21, 2006 2:50AM

> Shrirang Sahasrabudhe

> in a search app, on the 'search results' page
> where should be the default focus?

I wouldn't mess with the focus at all. Let the user navigate the page as they would any other page.

> should it be on the "search query text box" or it should be
> at the beginning of the search results.

Setting the focus on the search box assumes that the first thing they'd want to do is perform another search (or refine the current one). This would probably be the exception, rather than the norm.
And, for a bit of empirical evidence: we have a staff directory search in our organisation that set the focus on the box, and it's very annoying...I usually do a search just for last name, then want to use Firefox's own "typeahead find" functionality, but just starting to type simply fills in the search box, and it means I have to first click somewhere on the page to move the focus and THEN do the in-page searching.

> i am using H3 to mark beginning of the results and keeping
> default focus on the search query text box.
> is this according to accessibility requirements?

I'd say that there's no accessibility guideline that covers this specifically, but from a usability point of view I'd suggest that you shouldn't mess with the focus at all.

P