SUMMARY
Having the same search bar for all apps, installed apps, and updates runs counter to standard expectations (ie, that a search bar should not change what it is searching without clear indication that something is changed). Currently, the only way to tell what the search bar will search for is that the search bar will say "search in updates" or "search in installed," but 1) the text is gray, in small font, and easy to ignore and 2) the text disappears once you start typing in the search bar. Therefore, it is difficult to intuit where the search will actually be searching. This leads to multiple times in which I attempt to search for a new app, but the search bar instead searches in updates or installed apps.

Other software will generally have multiple search bars for when there are multiple things that you may want to search. This can be observed in other KDE apps as well. For instance, the main search bar in System Settings searches for all settings regardless of which page you are on. In the wifi page of System Settings, an additional search bar appears that is dedicated to searching for saved wifi settings. Likewise, in the File Associations page of System Settings, an additional search bar appears that is dedicated for searching for specific file types.

To improve the usability of the search bar in Discover, I propose that the current search bar should be dedicated to searching all apps, regardless of which page the user is on, then a separate search bar can be made in the updates and installed pages that are used exclusively for searching within those pages

SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
Operating System: Kubuntu 25.04
KDE Plasma Version: 6.3.4
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.12.0
Qt Version: 6.8.3
Kernel Version: 6.14.0-27-generic (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: Wayland