Suggestions must not replace the intent already typed
Aliases: preserve typed query · suggestion override · typed intent first
What it is
The string already in the box is the intent the user currently owns. Suggestions may complete and may demonstrate; they may not, without an explicit choice, swap that string for a hotter or “more correct” sentence. Suggestions must not replace typed intent: Enter, the search button, or a blur-submit must search the text in the box. Adopting a suggestion requires a perceptible selection (a click on that row, or moving keyboard highlight onto it and confirming).
“Did you mean to search for…” on the result page, as a tappable alternative path, is not the same as rewriting the query before submit. The former keeps the original intent and offers a branch; the latter makes it impossible to verify what was actually searched.
Why it happens
Autocomplete often treats the first suggestion as the default. Enter is implemented as “accept the highlighted suggestion,” and the highlight itself defaults to the first popular row. “void invoice” is then displaced by the popular “invoice reimbursement”—they share a prefix, popularity differs by an order of magnitude. The box may still show the user’s words (some implementations even rewrite the box); the result page ranks the other sentence. Blame lands on “there is no voiding” rather than “the query was swapped.”
Replacement also arrives as a “best guess” rewrite: the system decides the original is misspelled or insufficiently popular and swaps in a canonical phrasing without asking. That is not the visible rewrite of spelling correction, which at least admits a substitution happened. Here the suggestion module overreaches: a row in the list overwrites input that was never selected. Once intent is swapped, later filters, ranking, and zero-result handling all work on the wrong query, and the error is amplified rather than corrected.
Studying it
Make “query submitted” and “last string seen in the box” a pair that must be reconciled; do not only report suggestion click-through.
- Paradigms: when a prefix matches both an uncommon original and a popular suggestion, measure which sentence Enter submits; eye tracking or replay of whether the suggestion was glanced at before submit; log rate of “text in box ≠ actual query parameter.”
- Independent variables: Enter submits original vs accepts highlight, whether highlight defaults to row one, whether the result page shows the query that actually ran.
- Dependent variables: count of intent replacements, whether the user notices, success restoring the original after noticing.
- Methodological note: labs that stress “please use suggestions” legalize replacement. Include a condition where suggestions are visible but the task is to submit what you typed. When a popular suggestion is literally close to the original, swaps are harder to see; include adversarial pairs that share a prefix and diverge in meaning.
Where it stops holding
IME candidate confirmation changes box text as an explicit user choice; that is not suggestion overreach. Command palettes that “run the first hit” are an advertised shortcut, provided the highlight is visible and tightly related to the input. In accessibility, if focus is in the suggestion list, Enter should accept the suggestion—the split that matters is whether focus is in the field or the list, and Enter’s meaning must differ in the two places. After the user has explicitly put a suggestion into the box, that string is the new typed intent; submitting it later is not a replacement.
Applying it
- While the field has focus and no suggestion is explicitly selected, Enter and the search button submit the original; do not make the first suggestion an implicit default.
- Only a click, or keyboard highlight moved onto a row, may replace box text—and the replacement must happen in the box so the new string is seen.
- The result page heading or query chrome should restate the query that actually ran; if a suggestion made it differ from what was typed, offer “search instead for [original].”
- Verify by typing a complete query that differs from the first suggestion, touching nothing in the list, and pressing Enter. If results follow the suggestion, intent was replaced. Check whether the box and the result page still show the original; if both now show the suggestion and there is no revert, the replacement was silent.