Why is the top search result default instead of all results?

Hi @daveu! Hope you are fairing well today.

I was responsible for a large amount of the ux research conducted on the 1Password 8 Desktop apps over the course of almost three years. This was across Mac/Windows/Linux, various age ranges, various countries, various 1Password account holders and account tenures, etc.

From what I can recall, our current approach to search within the desktop app better aligned with user expectations in circumstances where they were trying to quickly find a singular item. This coincides with one of the major use cases of the 1Password desktop apps we were able to identify throughout those years of research where users only really going to the desktop app when they needed to find, adjust and/or organize with something specific in mind. However, even though a majority of our users were better served with this approach, we recognized the need for a way to get to a full search through the keyboard and circumvent the result suggestions. This is where the shortcut you mentioned comes into play as well as pressing up on the directional pad in the results drop down.

I do believe we can do better though, especially when learning from your use case and the muscle memory you've developed from your tech stack. We likely need a preference to adjust the input behaviour within search so we can better serve yourself, longer term 1Password users with muscle memory built up from previous releases, and/or simply folks who want return/enter to complete a full search every time. I'd really like to see us do more to adapt to the individual user overall.

I hope this answer provides you with better insight as to why this path was chosen and really appreciate the opportunity you've provided us to learn from.

Best regards,
Travis Hogan
Senior Product Manager - Authentication
1Password