Forum Discussion
The new Outlook search in the title bar is disconnected from the content it searches
What are you even talking about; dragging the window interacts perfectly fine with the search bar (on multiple machines) and the microsoft search function in particular is accessed through Alt+Q on a default QWERTY binding and has been for as long as I remember.
The original design of the microsoft search bar was on the ribbon - which was also arguably not optimal if not more obscure, but it certainly doesn't make the search on the title bar an "extra search field".
Many people use this feature in a lot of areas of expertise. Dismissing it as "a feature designed by someone who doesn't actually use Excel" is not only quite disrespectful, it doesn't even consider the fact that this design change has rolled out to most Office 365 apps.
I'm pretty sure a lot of people are frustrated with the really questionably bad design choice of where the search bar has moved (and left uncollapsed), but at least express more accurate or constructive feedback.
- Wow! What an incredibly condescending reply. However, I agree he was wrong for saying "a feature designed by someone who doesn't actually use Excel." He should have been more accurate and say "a feature designed by someone who has never used Office." See... my statement takes into consideration that this stupid design change has rolled out to most Office 365 apps.
The search box takes up ~20% of the title bar. It's also obvious that they are planning on doing away with the search tab completely as you can't access it anymore when customizing the ribbon. Perhaps maybe monotykamary doesn't mind being slow and methodical when doing simple tasks, but I've got work to do so when a window needs moving, I shouldn't have to think about it. Just click the title bar and drag. But if I happen to click on the overly large search box, no dragging.
Hopefully, the feature in Word to collapse the Search Box will be brought over to Outlook where it's really needed. Also, they should really re-think the "Suggested Actions". They're never relevant. monotykamary, thank you for pointing out the dragging ability of search bar, which I think is a nice idea, but on the other side it probably adds to invisibility of cursor inside new search bar, where you must guess cursor position, as it is not visible at all. Or it might be just a side effect of my chosen "dark grey" design of Outlook.
Regarding the position of new search on title bar is - if you ask me - one of Microsoft's poorly examined design feature, which goes on from first Office 2013 and Windows 8 designs. It was not all bad, but some design ideas were obviously "design before functionality" or just poorly analyzed design construct.
Search field, moved out of focused sight, is one of those bad ideas. There's absolutely no benefit of having to do larger mouse moves and move sight and focus away from list of messages. Actually, those are main reasons people do not like it. Brain does not like to jump around to find info, it is much more satisfied if it can just swipe around focused area and find needed info there. And title bar is definitively not that area of "easy to find info".
Additionally, I totally and simply cannot understand, why designers/developers put functions like "Reply" and "Reply All" into SEARCH suggestions ribbon? For me it is like having tire pressure gauge in post office, sorry, but sometimes sarcasm is just the right way to express how deeply you agree or not agree.
And finally, again I cannot agree more with myself when declaring this move of SEARCH box to the title bar one of forced, meaningless solutions, design before function or even "let's just change something for folks to see we are doing something" without doing any serious research on the subject. What I am talking about is the decade long SEARCH inability to search for regular mail-related expressions, like @and "." dot, which are common in e-mails, while Outlook considering those as OR separators. This disability is pulling nerves on everybody all those years, and Microsoft then changes SEARCH location, adds "Reply" button into search suggestions, but does absolutely NOTHING about improving real-world search functionality and inability to improve search with related suggestions. So searching for microsoft.com runs in my case 1 minute and returns:
- all mails containing "microsoft"
- all mails containing "com", which matches computer and incompatibility
...which is over 50.000 emails in my case. 99% of search results in my case are NOT what I want to find and does not ease on me even a bit. So if you ask me, MS did absolutely nothing to improve search results.
So MS, please, move SEARCH back to where it was for decade and more, and tie it to search related functions, ...or at least make the change optional. And fix the decade lasting search inability to adopt to real world search terms!
I literally have to take my eyes off what I doing and navigate with my mouse-less touch pad into a minuscule wedge in a place where it's least expected.
This comment string has been ongoing for 6+ months. Not time enough to nudge the Titanic.
Agility - meh.
I have many accounts and folders. Before, the title area showed which account and folder was being displayed in the message list. Now, the search bar is there and (as far as I can find) there is no way to see which account or folder is currently displayed. I must scroll up and down my (very long) account and folder list to find the folder which is highlighted. This is a major problem for which I can find no work around. I can live with the inconvenience of the new search bar. I find it very hard to function when I don't know where I am (or, worse, think I am in a place where I am not).
