• by Gord Hotchkiss , Featured Contributor, May 3, 2016

As I mentioned in last week’s column, Mediative has just released a new eyetracking study on mobile devices. And it appears that we’re still conditioned to look for the number-one organic result before clicking on our preferred destination.

But it appears that things might be in the process of changing. This makes sense. Searching on a mobile device is -- and should be -- significantly different from searching on a desktop. We have different intents. We are interacting with a different platform. Even the way we search is different.

Searching on a desktop is all about consideration. It’s about filtering and shortlisting multiple options to find the best one. Our search strategies are still carrying a significant amount of baggage from what search was: an often imperfect way to find the best place to get more information about something. That’s why we still look for the top organic listing.

For some reason, we still subconsciously consider this the gold standard of informational relevance.  We measure all other results against it. That’s why we make sure we reserve one slot from the three to five available in our working memory (I have found that the average person considers about four results at a time) for its evaluation.

But searching on a mobile device isn’t about filtering content. For one thing, it’s absolutely the wrong platform to do this. The real estate is too limited. For another, it’s probably not what we want to spend our time doing. We’re on the go and trying to get stuff done. This is not the time for pausing and reflecting. This is the time to find what we're looking for and use it to take action.

This all makes sense, but the fact remains that the way we search is a product of habit. It’s a conditioned, subconscious strategy that was largely formed on the desktop. Most of us haven’t done enough searching on mobile devices yet to abandon our desktop-derived strategies and create new mobile-specific ones. So our subconscious starts playing out the desktop script and only varies from it when it looks like it’s not going to deliver acceptable results. That’s why we’re still looking for that number-one organic listing to benchmark against.

There were a few findings in the Mediative study indicating our desktop habits may be starting to slip on mobile devices. But before we review them, let’s do a quick review of how habits play out.

Habits are the brains way of cutting down on thinking. If we do something over and over again and get acceptable results, we store that behavior as a habit. The brain goes on autopilot so we don’t have to think our way through a task with predictable outcomes.

If things change, however -- either in the way the task plays out or in the outcomes we get -- the brain reluctantly takes control again and starts thinking its way through the task.

I believe this is exactly what’s happening with our mobile searches. The brain desperately wants to use its desktop habits, but the results are falling below our threshold of acceptability. That means we’re all somewhere in the process of rebuilding a search strategy more suitable for a mobile device.

Mediative’s study shows me a brain that’s caught between the desktop searches we’ve always done and the mobile searches we’d like to do. We still feel we should scroll to see at least the top organic result, but as mobile search results become more aligned with our intent, which is typically to take action right away, we are being sidetracked from our habitual behaviors and kicking our brains into gear to take control.  The result is that when Google shows search elements that are probably more aligned with our intent -- either local results, knowledge graphs or even highly relevant ads with logical ad extensions (such as a “call” link) -- we lose confidence in our habits. We still scroll down to check out the organic result, but we probably scroll back up and click on the more relevant result.

All this switching back and forth from habitual to engaged interaction with the results ends up exacting a cost in terms of efficiency. We take longer to conduct searches on a mobile device, especially if that search shows other types of results near the top.

In the study, participants spent an extra two seconds or so scrolling between the presented results (7.15 seconds for varied results vs. 4.95 seconds for organic-only results).  And even though they spent more time scrolling, more participants ended up clicking on the mobile relevant results they saw right at the top.

The trends I’m describing here are subtle, often playing out in a couple seconds or less. And you might say that it’s no big deal.

But habits are always a big deal. The fact that we’re still relying on desktop habits that were laid down over the past two decades shows how persistent they can be. If I’m right and we’re finally building new habits specific to mobile devices, those habits could dictate our search behaviors for a long time to come.