• The problematic line of code was introduced in 2017, see https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/c/mediawiki/extensions/MobileFrontend/+/330354/14/resources/skins.minerva.special.search.styles/search.less.
• Advanced-Search was developed later, see https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMDE_Technical_Wishes/AdvancedSearch#Status.
• The commit message says "Search form is now visible on Special:Search page at mobile resolutions". This is (probably) a description of what we see. But it doesn't explain anything.
• The linked ticket is T152458: Replace the search bar from the header on small screens with the search icon. I can't find an explanation there either.

The behavior we see at the moment is confusing for a few reasons.

• The complex Advanced-Search interface is only shown when the screen is very narrow, but not when there is a lot of space. It feels like this is the wrong way around.
• The breakpoint is the same as the one for the search bar at the top of the screen. That one collapses to an icon when the screen is very narrow. This might be related, maybe even the reason for the behavior we see. However. It's not like the top bar goes away and we need the default Special:Search interface as a replacement. The top bar just collapses and can still be activated by clicking on the icon.

While this might become a WMDE-Design task, the current behavior is technically wrong for the reasons listed above and should fix first. We will present this to UX during demo time and decide if and how to proceed.

After having another look, there seems to be at least one other symptom of this behavior that's visible:

When the screen is wider there's more room in the header to show the simple search bar. So there's this one breakpoint where the search form is hidden on the main screen but becomes visible in the header. That behavior makes sense when the user is browsing normal pages but not on the Special:Search page. There it's even more weird, because the field in the header does not even contain the original search term anymore.

So to avoid confusion I would

• Always show the search form on all screen widths on the Special:Search` page
• Always hide the header search field on the Special:Search page

IMO this goes over Advanced-Search and WMDE-TechWish. The issue is also present without Advanced-Search installed. I guess the Web Team is somehow responsible and should be involved at least in a review.

Change 969083 had a related patch set uploaded (by WMDE-Fisch; author: WMDE-Fisch):

[mediawiki/skins/MinervaNeue@master] Always show search form on Special:Search

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/969083

My professional opinion as an UX expert (not part of an UX team, though) is to apply https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/969083 and leave it as it is, i.e. both search fields visible.

• The confusion from seeing two search fields should be minimal. The user will just use the one they feel more comfortable with and ignore the other, possibly not even notice it.
• Both fields are in valid, consistent places. For different definitions of "consistent", though.
  1. The field on top is part of the skin and always in the same position. This is consistent with the behavior of pretty much every skin.
     • While I understand the idea to hide it in certain situations I don't think this is a good idea. Doing so will confuse users that expect the search field to be there. Out of a sudden they have to look for the search field somewhere else.
  2. The field in the content area is part of Special:Search. This is always how Special:Search starts, in all skins.
     • Users are probably used to this and expect it.
     • It's especially relevant when the user wants to refine the search they just did. This is not possible when the form is hidden.
• Even if we change the top MinervaNeue search bar to echo the current search (not sure if we should as no other skin does this) this doesn't make the Special:Search form obsolete. Neither the Advanced-Search one nor the core one. Even the most basic form in core does have extra features that aren't accessible from MinervaNeue.
• Note that the relevant experience is not the one with an empty form – almost no user will ever see this – but the one with search results.

@ovasileva WMDE want to display the search form on search results page. I forget the reason we hide it on Minerva but this seems like a product decision - there's no technical reason for hiding it. Can you advise on the history here and the impacts of showing both?

Olga has acknowledged this ticket and will reply shortly.

Hi all, just looked at this in a bit more detail and I'm seeing that advanced search appears on Minerva once we get below ~700px, but not when the page is larger than that. No concerns from my side with showing it at 700+ pixels.

Change 969083 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/skins/MinervaNeue@master] Always show search form on Special:Search

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/969083

Test Result - Prod

Status: ✅ PASS
Environment: enwiki
OS: macOS Sonoma
Browser: Chrome
Device: MBA
Emulated Device:NA

Test Artifact(s):

QA Steps

Change your skin to MinervaNeue
Open the search page
✅ AC1: The Advanced-Search is visible independent of screen size