Emma Chittenden

The person you call when nobody can find anything.

What your search metrics are actually telling you

Apr 22, 2026

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5 min read

What your search metrics are actually telling you

Most people look at their search metrics and see numbers. What they should be seeing is a conversation their customers are trying to have with them. Here's how to read it.

Emma Chittenden

Taxonomy

When your website speaks the language but misses the person

Apr 5, 2026

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4 min read

When your website speaks the language but misses the person

When customers can't find what they're looking for, they don't complain, they leave. Here's what that's quietly costing you.

Emma Chittenden

Taxonomy

Mar 21, 2026

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5 min read

Why "People Chips" is a taxonomy nightmare

Google recently named a new Sheets feature "People Chips." It's caused a stir, and not in a good way. But the real question isn't whether the label is odd; it's how a company with Google's resources ended up there in the first place.

Emma Chittenden

What's actually inside your search engine?

Nov 29, 2023

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5 min read

What's actually inside your search engine?

Your site search is broken. Before you can fix it, you need to understand what you're actually fixing. Here's a plain-English guide to what's inside a search engine and why each component shapes the results your customers see.

Emma Chittenden

Navigation

When information architecture meets service design, you finally see the whole picture

Nov 22, 2023

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4 min read

When information architecture meets service design, you finally see the whole picture

Information architecture tells you what a product contains and how it connects. Service design tells you why it works the way it does. Most projects use one or the other. The ones that use both are the ones that avoid expensive surprises.

Emma Chittenden

Nov 15, 2023

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5 min read

The cost of a broken search

When customers can't find what they're looking for, they don't complain, they leave. Here's what that's quietly costing you.

Emma Chittenden

Navigation

Your website has a findability problem. Here's who fixes it.

Nov 8, 2023

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5 min read

Your website has a findability problem. Here's who fixes it.

Information architects have been quietly solving one of the web's oldest problems: people can't find things. The job title is obscure, the discipline is misunderstood, and most businesses don't know they need one until something goes badly wrong.

Emma Chittenden

Navigation

Jun 1, 2022

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5 min read

Why your navigation tests are probably lying to you

Navigation is the thing your users should never notice. So how do you test something that's supposed to be invisible? The answer is simpler than you'd expect, and it changes everything about how you set up your research.

Emma Chittenden

Navigation

You can't measure success if you never measured the problem

May 9, 2022

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5 min read

You can't measure success if you never measured the problem

Most navigation projects start with a complaint and end with a guess. Benchmarking gives you a before-and-after you can actually defend, evidence that secures budget, and a way to know whether what you built is better than what you replaced.

Emma Chittenden

Navigation

Your users can't find what they need. The clues are already in your data.

May 9, 2022

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5 min read

Your users can't find what they need. The clues are already in your data.

Your website isn't broken by accident. Something specific went wrong, and somewhere in your data, your users are trying to tell you what it is. The trick is knowing where to look, and what counts as a signal rather than noise.

Emma Chittenden

Methodology

What do quant, qual and benchmarking actually mean?

May 2, 2022

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5 min read

What do quant, qual and benchmarking actually mean?

Everyone in digital throws around words like "qual", "quant" and "benchmarking" as though they mean the same thing. They don't. Here's what each term actually means, why the distinctions matter, and how to use them to ask better questions about your product.

Emma Chittenden

Methodology

Card sorting has a problem. Actually, it has several

Apr 24, 2022

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6 min read

Card sorting has a problem. Actually, it has several

Card sorting looks like a rigorous way to design navigation. In practice, it excludes a significant portion of your users, generates data that rarely survives contact with a real interface, and cannot do the one job people keep using it for. Here is what you need to know before you run another sort.

Emma Chittenden

Methodology

Card sorting: what it is, how it works, and when to use it

Apr 24, 2022

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5 min read

Card sorting: what it is, how it works, and when to use it

Most navigation problems aren't really navigation problems. They're labelling problems, or structure problems, or both. Card sorting is one of the most useful tools for diagnosing which one you're dealing with, but only if you use it correctly.

Emma Chittenden

Why too much choice is costing you customers

Apr 21, 2022

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5 min read

Why too much choice is costing you customers

You've given customers everything they could possibly want. So why are they leaving empty-handed? The problem isn't your catalogue. It's the cognitive weight of having to choose from all of it.

Emma Chittenden

Why search noise is quietly killing your conversions

Apr 6, 2022

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4 min read

Why search noise is quietly killing your conversions

Your search bar is there. People are using it. So why aren't they converting? The problem might not be your products or your prices. It might be noise, and it is quieter and more destructive than you'd think.

Emma Chittenden

Why your search engine can't read minds (and what to do about it)

Apr 6, 2022

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5 min read

Why your search engine can't read minds (and what to do about it)

Your search engine doesn't know that "bum" and "bottom" mean the same thing unless you tell it. Synonyms are the configuration layer that bridges the gap between your language and your customers'. Here's how they work and why most sites don't use them.

Emma Chittenden

Your search results are showing up. So why isn't anyone clicking?

Apr 6, 2022

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5 min read

Your search results are showing up. So why isn't anyone clicking?

Relevant results get clicked. Irrelevant ones get ignored. Here's what relevancy actually means and why it decides whether your search is working.

Emma Chittenden

Google is not your search. But your visitors think it is.

Mar 28, 2022

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5 min read

Google is not your search. But your visitors think it is.

If people are Googling their way around your website rather than using your onsite search, you have a problem. A serious one. The bigger the site, the bigger the problem.This is not a quirk. It is a signal.

Emma Chittenden

Navigation

Mega menus vs burger menus: which one actually works?

Mar 23, 2022

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5 min read

Mega menus vs burger menus: which one actually works?

Your navigation is making people leave. Not because your content is bad, but because they can't find it. Mega menus and burger menus are two of the most argued-about patterns in web design, and almost everyone has the wrong opinion about both of them.

Emma Chittenden

Navigation

That flag in your nav isn't doing what you think it is

Mar 15, 2022

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4 min read

That flag in your nav isn't doing what you think it is

That little flag icon in your navigation looks helpful. It is not. Using national flags to represent language selection is one of the most persistent mistakes in navigation design, and it costs you users every time.

Emma Chittenden