Yeah, the issue here is because it doesn't work the same as XI, and SE didn't bother to give us any info as to how it's supposed to work, no one could figure it out early on, and hardly anyone has ever bothered to use it.

If you've ever played Guild Wars, the search feature in XIV is almost exactly the same as that game's. It's kind of the inverse of XI's party search. Instead of a party looking for people to invite, people look for the party and join themselves.

As others have said, the only problem with it is no one uses it. There's absolutely nothing wrong with its design or function. It's just that most people don't even know it's there, and most people that do know it's there don't fully understand how it works.