You’d think that a “search” box on a news website like cleveland.com would be a simple thing to set up, but a surprising level of programming and testing is involved in helping you find what you want.
Now, we’ve taken that search box into hyperdrive by using artificial intelligence. Here’s the story behind how we have upgraded one tiny part of our website.
The longstanding aim of the search box was for you to find specific stories you wanted, the latest on subjects you follow or, even, the most recent advice columns. You’d type in key words like “Dear Abby,” and you’d get links to the recent pieces.
You can still do that, but now, you can ask a question, and artificial intelligence will use our stories to answer it, based on our latest reporting. You can ask it, for example, what’s the latest from Browns writer Mary Kay Cabot on quarterback Shedeur Sanders. You’ll get a few paragraphs summarizing her recent stories along with links to the full reports.
Again, this seems simple, but getting to it was anything but. Jeff Hobbs has been determined to make this as user-friendly as possible without harming the existing functionality. Jeff is director of product management for Advance Local, our parent company, and we’ve worked with him regularly to test his ideas. He was instrumental in the success of our Google Right to Be Forgotten project a few years ago.
The backbone of the artificial intelligence answers is a new product from the company that powers our website search box, Queryly. The company offered a free trial, and the Cleveland newsroom jumped at the chance.
Before we could start, though, Jeff and his team – working with the Advance Local user experience team — had to design an interface that accomplished three goals:
-Let readers continue to use the search function as before.
-Add the AI function to answer reader questions.
-Alert readers that the search box is now more powerful.
That’s a lot to pack into a tiny box, and Jeff and his team considered many ideas, repeatedly refining the experience. I think the efforts have paid off. Give it a run and see if you agree.
Click the hamburger icon — the three horizontal lines at the top left of our page — to reach the new search page, where you can enter keywords or questions. Jeff’s team added three sample questions – suggested by reporters and editors in our newsroom – so that you get an idea of how to use the new search function.
And, of course, we have a disclaimer to explain that artificial intelligence can make big mistakes, so readers should check original sources for anything they consider important.
What happens when you ask a question in the search box? Queryly says the AI instantly scans thousands of cleveland.com articles to find relevant content, then transforms what it finds into a concise, conversational answer. All of this happens in seconds.
So, please give it a whirl and let me know what you think. If readers love this as much as we suspect, we’ll aim to keep it beyond the trial.
On a separate topic, I was a guest on a podcast called Can You Hear Me, talking about our use of artificial intelligence and how we, along with our sister Advance Local newsrooms, have made the journey to sustainable journalism is a digital era. Hosts Rob Johnson and Eileen Rochford engage me in a robust discussion about the rapidly changing state of news. You can find Can You Hear Me? anywhere you download podcasts, including here. My episode was on Sept. 24.
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