On a hot August evening in late 2009, a Palo Alto entrepreneur working in her home office landed on Google's befuddling advanced search menu.

"Oh, I hate this," she said, before immediately clicking away.

It was far from a ringing endorsement of the Mountain View company's product design. But it wasn't exactly a surprise for Dan Russell, Google's search scientist who at that moment was staring over the woman's shoulder, taking notes and video.

Russell had noticed that about 85 percent of people acted the same way when they reached the page, and he'd set out to understand why by observing and talking to users. Call it search anthropology.

It's a little-known function within an online giant famously focused on data, employing the reams of bits and bytes that users throw off to tweak, test and improve its products. But about four years after forming, Google came to realize it needed human insights to infuse that information with context and meaning.

The company began conducting user research studies and hiring human-computer interactions experts, eventually snagging Russell from IBM in 2005. His main role is studying Web searchers in their natural environment, at home or work, picking up the human scent where the data trail goes cold.

"One of the things we can get from data is the behaviors," he said. "But in many cases, we don't know why the behaviors are the way they are."

For instance, just knowing that people were fleeing from advanced search didn't begin to tell the company how to fix it.

Confusing boxes

But the Palo Alto entrepreneur explained that the page's legal terms and bevy of search boxes, which all seemed to demand filling in, were confusing and off-putting. Russell heard similar responses from others.

When he showed a highlight reel of their visceral reactions to a roomful of Google engineers, it finally hit home that the company needed to simplify the user interface. After they did, the bounce rate - or the percentage of people who instantly clicked away - dropped almost 50 percent.

Russell is part of a small team at Google that focuses on the human side of the equation for search. In addition to regularly observing searchers in the wild, they conduct user surveys, pay people in cafes to try out new products, and invite people into Google to run them through exercises and eye-movement studies. The goal is to better understand how people interact with Google's products and why.

Russell's roots are in computer science. He earned his master's and doctorate in the field from the University of Rochester, then went to work at the famed Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, Apple and IBM, before landing at Google.

At Xerox PARC, he was focused on artificial intelligence. But after developing what he thought was a sophisticated tool for simplifying programming for high-end copiers, he was disappointed to find that nobody - even prominent AI researchers - could figure out how to use his creation.

It was an epiphanous moment. Russell realized that the most powerful technology in the world is next to useless if people don't understand how to use it. From then on, most of his work has focused on the science of user experiences.

"It was like Saul on the road to Damascus," he said. "A light came down and said, 'Kid, you're going to be doing this from now on.' "

In the United States, the use of what is known as applied anthropology or sometimes industrial ethnography dates back to at least the 1920s. Anthropologists and Harvard researchers conducted a now-famous series of experiments designed to increase worker productivity at Western Electric Co.'s Hawthorne Works in Chicago.

Applied anthropology isn't exactly a common practice in the business world today, though it tends to be more popular at technology companies. In addition to Google, Microsoft, Intel and IBM also apply these techniques, said Stephen Barley, co-director of the Center for Work, Technology and Organization at Stanford.

Many firms employ usability labs to observe users interacting with their products in a controlled setting. But they miss a critical layer of perspective if they don't watch how people use products in the real world, Barley said.

"Use is more than what happens at the interface level," he said. "It's what happens when it's embedded into a context and workflow."

In recent months, Google has overhauled the design of many of its major services - knowing full well that such an endeavor would annoy some users. In fact, people complain so routinely about changes that there's an industry phrase for it: "You moved my cheese!"

Root of the issue

The trick is distinguishing the hardwired aversion to change from legitimate complaints that the company is making things worse.

For most changes, traffic patterns tend to return to normal after a few weeks, after users figure out where their favorite features ended up.

But at least one change made around the end of last year seems to have had a lasting impact. Google peeled the "advanced search" button off the main page to make it clean and simple, qualities users always request. Usage numbers declined, however, and stayed down.

During a trip to the San Francisco Public Library this month, it was clear why. Russell spent about an hour observing and talking to Patrick Shea, a librarian working on the ground floor.

He asked about typical patron inquiries and the search tools Shea employs to help them. Then he ran him through some tests, asking how he'd use Google to find vague queries like: "A book about oranges by a Scottish author."

At one point when Shea was stumped, Russell suggested he try advanced search. But Shea couldn't find it. The company hadn't just moved his cheese, they'd hidden it.

Russell has heard from a number of other librarians who can't seem to find it anymore. But when asked, he said that doesn't necessarily mean Google is going to put it back.

Google has hundreds of millions of users, each with different needs, working styles and levels of search competence. Every change for one subset - like those who occasionally use advanced search - comes at a cost for others - like the vast majority of people who never use it and don't want it cluttering up the main page.

Striking the right balance for the greater good requires listening to the data - and, of course, to the users themselves.

"That particular interview didn't finish off the painting," Russell said. "But every interview helps fill in a little bit more of the canvas."