Our search box was used 3x more after we made it worse.

We had a search box that searched everything: documents, settings, help articles, users. It was powerful and slow — median 2.4 seconds to results.

We tested a version that searched only documents, the most common intent, and returned results in 180ms. A separate link said "Search everything else."

Results over 4 weeks:

Old search: 1,900 searches/week, 2.4s median, 31% clicked a result
New search: 6,100 searches/week, 180ms median, 58% clicked a result

The powerful version was being avoided because it was slow and ambiguous. The narrow version was used because it was fast and predictable. We had confused capability with usefulness.

We kept the fast document search and moved the broad search behind a deliberate click. Total search usage stayed 3x higher.

What feature of yours is being avoided because it tries to do too much?