Correct. And decades of research have strongly suggested there's an upper limit to how much you can teach the average user.
Remember: XEROX PARC's GUI breakthrough was "What if we make working on a computer feel like pushing stuff around on an office desk." "Educating the user" required walking three-quarters of the way to what they were already familiar with.
Instead of trying to teach users how a search bar is different from a URL bar, there's a lot of meat on the bones of the idea of just making them the same thing. They look like the same thing. They act like the same thing. Maybe they are the same thing?
Yeah, but keyboard has so many keys, which looks too similar and act in similar way. Why not to free user from typing? Just make one big button, called «Home», which will navigate user to Start of Internet, where he can select the site instead of searching it.
Moreover, most of the time users are just watching video, so why not to launch a video stream right after powering of the device? Why we need to confuse user with these buttons and Internet at all?
Moreover, user are watching video to satisfy their hunger for new, to feel good. Why not just to produce a chemical which make the same when consumed? Or just plant electrodes into brain, which is much safer. Then, without burden of these users, we will able to use a browser with separate URL and search bars, which is good for work performance.
> Moreover, most of the time users are just watching video, so why not to launch a video stream right after powering of the device? Why we need to confuse user with these buttons and Internet at all?
I can tell you're being facetious, but you actually just described "television," and you should see the numbers on how many people buy cable instead of cutting the cord and subscribing to a handful of streaming services for half the price specifically because (and they do surveys on this stuff) "I just want it to work; I don't want to search for something to watch, I want to turn it on, it's already playing something, and I just put it in the background."
> we will able to use a browser with separate URL and search bars, which is good for work performance
Maybe I just don't do the kind of work where it's mattered, but the fact that my URL bar also accepts keywords and auto-directs them to a search engine has never impacted my work performance (perhaps because I use bookmarks for anything I need to get to frequently, bypassing the URL bar entirely).
> I can tell you're being facetious, but you actually just described "television,"
My mom has 64" 4k TV with excellent image quality, but very often (right now, for example) she watches YouTube on her old CoreDuo PC with 24" screen, in small window. I don't know why.
My search bar shows me my past searches, instead of random suggestions, while my URL bar shows my past URL's, which saves tons of time for me when I need to find a past site or a past search. Also, I can quickly select another specialized search engine for a search.
I general, general people needs something simple, while a professional needs something powerful.
> Also, I can quickly select another specialized search engine for a search.
Chrome's unified bar currently supports that. Type a fragment of a site name and hit tab... If the site published a standard search mapping in its metadata, the bar changes modes to direct a search query to the specified website. Super useful for GitHub.
100% agreed, I have no problem smushing the two concepts together but also we then have to tell users in the UI and make it visually discoverable that the bar thing is called the "navigation bar" or whatever so we can refer to it.
I would absolutely kill for a shortcut that when held creates an overlay that puts labels on all the UI elements so I can say, "hold Ctrl+H and look for navigation bar."
Remember: XEROX PARC's GUI breakthrough was "What if we make working on a computer feel like pushing stuff around on an office desk." "Educating the user" required walking three-quarters of the way to what they were already familiar with.
Instead of trying to teach users how a search bar is different from a URL bar, there's a lot of meat on the bones of the idea of just making them the same thing. They look like the same thing. They act like the same thing. Maybe they are the same thing?