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

As an aside I found that the Cmd+Opt+F (or on Windows Ctl+Alt+F) doesn't work properly anyway (posted here https://1password.community/discussion/comment/669492/#Comment_669492) - contrary to the title however i found search does search notes and everything else fine, it's the new "Find" function that doesn't. 1PW Team have confirmed they are aware of the issue and working on it - so its being addressed, but it's just another annoyance around the whole v8 'Search' versus 'Find" thing!

When 1PW8 became available as early access version many users complained about the new search or to be more precise about its new UI and about missing substring search.
A few months later Dave Teare presented a solution for the UI problems - CMD+OPT+F. It works like the search of all previous 1PW version, i. e. just type and get the results in the middle column, no popup window with a few pre filtered results and no extra keyboard shortcut. For me and many others this was usabilitywise a near perfect solution. But it introduced other problems. First of all it's well hidden. And even if someone found it, its placement just next to the sort order button and directly below the "real" search" field feels totally out of place.

Im working for ~25 as software engineer. All our products work like 1PW1-7 did and I can't remember a single customer complaining about it. All programmes and tools I use daily have search UIs like 1PW1-7 had. Just simple straight forward type and get results. The only exceptions to this patterns seem to be some search engines and shopping sites.

So please revert the search UI change you made in 1PW8. And on top of that merge all three search/filter/find variants 1PW8 currently supports into just one.

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.

Thanks 1P_Travis for the explanation - FWIW I also find the whole addition of the cmd+option+f (or ctl+alt+f on Windows) thing counterintuitive and frankly just a little bizarre (at least for the primary search function). If you have a perfectly workable search function that is well displayed and integrated into the UI and obvious to every user regardless of platform why add a second obscure duplicate function (that requires multiple keyboard key use to activate & has no UI visual presence for non-advanced users) and its function is different to how the same command works in other apps?

The use of the cmd+option+f (or ctl+alt+f) for primary search in 1PW is inconsistent with how it's used by virtually every other app and system around (at least that I know of) - it's primarily for 'find' functionality within a single document, website page or other similar individual instance. In 1PW's case this would be within a single item's details (e.g. searching the text within a single Secure Note) - not doing a full search of the database - hence counterintuitive and not following consistent practice for this function (at least as I know it - happy to be corrected). Can you update the cmd+option+f function so it can at least have the option to be used like in most other environments & apps to find text within any fields of the current item you have open (i.e. inside a single vault item - currently it can't and seems to only search item 'names' plus username fields in the entire vault from what I can tell - while the full search function searches URLs and other additional fields - that's just weird and messy - and it means cmd+option+f isn't really usable as a surrogate search like it's been suggested in this thread).

Anyway just my 2¢ on the subject - not wanting to be negative or decry the work that you, the dev teams, everyone else has put into redesigning everything from the ground up and building v8 which I know is a huge undertaking - and if it helps make 1PW robust and secure and more adaptable long-term that is great. But sometimes what sounds like a good idea on paper doesn't turn out to be IRL, or what research suggests people/users/customers want isn't actually what they really want.

Sorry but I have to say that 1PW8's search is in my opinion a complete fail. The change made me revert to 1PW7 almost immediately. My workflow is heavily based on search and whenever I search I expect all results to be shown without any extra step or relevance filtering inbetween. This is the way search works in any other application I use.
CMD-OPT-F would be perfect if it would be the default and could fully replace the new search.
I'm using 1PW since version 1 and following the forums for many years. I've never seen complaints about search during this time. But I appreciate that I finally got an explanation why the change was introduced.

"I wonder if we should make the Cmd-Option-F (Edit > Find) option a bit more prominent."

I didn't know about that and after I did it I couldn't tell what happened. Took me a second to see what was going on.

Thank 1P_Travis , I really appreciate the response. I can see how the current system would satisfy users with a small set of entries or are just an individual, but as the head of a household (who all seem to rely on me to manage and tidy up their passwords), you can imagine what happens when I search "google" or "apple id" for a family of 6 in a shared vault as well as my own. Plus, I was a user of 1Password from the beginning with entries created all the way back in 2007, so you can imagine the number of search hits I get for any given criteria. An option to see All Results by default would be fantastic. Thanks again.

I wonder if we should make the Cmd-Option-F (Edit > Find) option a bit more prominent.

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

In addition to what Mike mentioned, I've reached out to our own user research team to see what if any findings they have in this regard. Thank you again for sharing your input on this.

Ben

Hello @daveu,

Thanks for your message and feedback! The team is tracking a feature request to add some additional options to change the default search behaviour. While I don't have any news to share about when or if this will be implemented, I've included your voice in the feature request for our Product team.

ref: IDEA-I-289