Google Search Appliance Creating the Search Experience - Manual (Page 24)

Google Search Appliance: Creating the Search Experience Introduction 24
Changing the User Interface
As shown in “Focusing on End Users” on page 9, the Google Search Appliance user interface
consists of a search page and results page. A user interface is associated with a specific front end. The
search and results page examples in “Starting with a Basic Search Experience” on page 9 illustrate the
user interface for the default front end. This user interface includes Google-specific elements, such as:
• Google logo
• Search Google button label
The user interface for the default front end can also be used with any other front ends that you create
for a search appliance.
The search appliance allows maximum flexibility for customizing the appearance of the search and
results pages. Often, an organization creates its own visual identity using elements such as:
• Logo
• Colors
• Font faces
You can apply these elements to the user interface. The search and results page examples in
Customizing the Basic Search Experience illustrate this type of change. In this example, the
administrator adds the company logo and changed the font for the user interface.
When a search appliance has multiple front ends:
• Each front end can have its own user interface
• Each user interface can be customized for a particular type of end user, as illustrated in “Creating
Multiple Search Experiences” on page 11
In this example, the administrator customized the results listings, the KeyMatches, and the
language of the user interface for various type of end users.
The appearance of the results page is created when the search appliance's XSL transformation engine
applies an XSLT stylesheet to search results in HTML. For an overview of this process, refer to “Search
Experience Background” on page 28.
The Page Layout Helper is a tool that you can use to make simple changes to the user interface. Without
any knowledge of XSLT, you can use the Page Layout Helper to customize the appearance of:
• Global attributes—Custom logo, font face, custom header, custom footer, analytics account
• Search box—Length, button text or image, menu for searching by collection, radio button for
searching public or public and secure content
• Search results—Logo, Advanced search link, search tips link, search box (top), page divider (search
information), Previous/Next link, Sort by Date/Relevance link, Dynamic result clusters, Snippet, URL
link, page size, modified date, cache link, page footer, search box (bottom)
The Page Layout Helper is on the Serving > Front Ends > Output Format page. For complete
information about the Page Layout Helper, click Help Center > Serving > Front Ends > Output Format
in the Admin Console.
With knowledge of XSLT, you can make even more extensive changes to the user interface, such as
changing labels and colors for
• Spelling suggestions
• Related queries