The search result layout has several crucial purposes to fulfill, and can be quite a balancing act, as it should 1) enable users to make an initial assessment of the results and their quality, answering the question, Did the site return any good matches, or do I have to make a new search?, 2) provide an overview that clearly outlines the different options the user has, and give a decent look into the breadth of the product selection matching the query, answering the question, Which of these results are relevant to me? and 3) provide enough information scent about each result so users can properly evaluate and compare them in order to decide which results are worth opening for further exploration and which should be avoided, answering the question, Which product should I open/buy?

Not getting the balance of the search results layout just right will severely harm an otherwise good search experience, as users will either lack overview or be forced into extensive pogo-sticking — the latter being observed particularly frequently during testing. Needless and excessive pogo-sticking — where users are going back-and-forth between the search results and product pages just to learn the most basic product attributes — is frustrating to users as they have to spend a considerable amount of time exploring completely irrelevant results, all due to a substandard search results layout.

Learn More: Besides exploring the 1077 search results page design examples below (for general inspiration), you may also want to read our related articles on “Product Thumbnails Should Dynamically Update to Match the Variation Searched For (54% Don’t)”, “Faceted Sorting - A New Method for Sorting Search Results”, and “E-Commerce Sites Should Include Contextual Search Snippets (96% Get It Wrong)”.

Get Full Access: To see all of Baymard’s e-commerce search research findings you’ll need Baymard Premium access. (Premium also provides you full access to 150,000+ hours of UX research findings, 650+ e-commerce UX guidelines, and 275,000+ UX performance scores.)