Designers and developers need to design for these scenarios and provide users with clear feedback and guidance on how to refine their search.
Below you can read about a few of the most common reasons why the system returns no results and advice on how to handle these cases.
Common reasons that lead to no results page
User expectations
Users could have different expectations of what the search and filtering can support. For example, if the search field can handle only a few types of information like container number and order number but the label and placeholder are generic “Search”. In this case users will expect they can enter any keyword, number or phrase.
Search query is not properly formatted.
For example if people use incorrect search operators e.g. using a comma instead of a space between search terms. This could also happen if the UI is does not support auto-formatting or does not have guiding labels and placeholders.
Too narrow scope
For example, if a search is limited to a specific date range or category and there are no matching items within that range or category, no results will be returned.
Search query doesn’t match any data in the system.
This could happen if the search terms are misspelled or if the data being searched is incomplete, inaccurate or does not match one to one the input.
Technical issues with the database being searched.
This could be due to issues with indexing or database connectivity.
Our recommendation to handle these cases
The overall recommendation is to aim for prevention and in the worst case provide a fallback for no results page that displays clear system feedback and a way for the user to recover.
Communicate what to expect from the search and filtering
- Provide as much guidance in advance to help people understand what are the capabilities of the product application to find information
- Communicate what formats are supported - if there are any restrictions.
- Apply autocomplete and suggestions to assist in inputting the correct values that can lead to results in the search.
Prevent wrong input as much as possible
- Allow only input that is accepted and formatted correctly so it increases the chance of users to getting the information they need.
- When using the live filtering concept, aim to provide filters that can return results. If possible indicate how many results each filtering option will add.
Provide clear system feedback
If users can still submit input that will return no results, provide clear feedback to them. A way to do that is to use the Invalid state of the input component or/and the notification component.
No results page state
Even when communication and system feedback is clear and in place to correct the input, people might still get to a dead end in their search journey. This is why it is important to design and implement a no-results page that clearly communicates the issue and what actions people can take.