In every other program or web page, hitting the enter key either indicates that the program should start searching, pull up the search results in some form, or open the selected record. This means that we frequently close the search window when doing what we instinctively do in order to "get" the results which can be frustrating for users as they now have to re-type their search. This is compounded by the fact that the search results may be slightly delayed when typing removing a visual clue that the search results are automatically displaying causing users to default to their learned habits from other sites and program (especially for faster typers).

Hitting the enter key when in the search should do one of the following things:

• Do nothing (does not respond to the input)

• Opens up the results in some manner (search results page, dialog type-window in-page, the first result, etc.)

If a key is needed to close the search window, the key most people would expect to "close" something is the Escape key.