Search engines are one of the most familiar sights on the World Wide Web. As the web keeps getting larger and more unmanageable, search engines and directories become more valuable in helping people get where they want to go. Text retrieval systems, once the domain of librarians, have now moved onto the desktop, and are starting to be used on PDAs and cell phones as well.

This talk is an introduction to the user interface issues associated with search on the web. We first introduce the architecture and algorithms of modern search engines. With this background, we will discuss prior work in user interface design for search engine front-ends and client-side search tools and opportunities for interface innovation. We will discuss the differences between web search and traditional information retrieval in terms of audience, scope, and technologies.