We examined the effects of previewing one aspect of a search display, in order to determine what subset of display information is most useful as a prelude to a search task. Observers were asked to indicate the presence or absence of a known target, in a conjunction search where the target was defined by the combination of colour and orientation (a yellow horizontal line presented among yellow vertical and pink horizontal distractors). In the colour preview condition of experiment 1, observers were first shown a 1 s preview of the locations and colours of the search items before the actual search set was presented. That is, search items first appeared as yellow and pink squares for 1 s, which each then turned into yellow and pink oriented lines (in the same locations) which comprised the display to be searched. In the orientation preview condition, observers were first shown a 1 s preview of the locations and orientations of the search items before the actual search display was presented. These two conditions were compared to a control condition consisting of standard conjunction search without any preview display. There was no effect of colour preview; there was a marginal effect of orientation preview, but in the opposite direction from what was expected reaction time increased for orientation preview searches. In experiment 2 these previews were compared to two spatial cueing conditions; in this experiment the colour preview did provide a small amount of help. Finally, in experiment 3 both previews were presented in succession, and increased facilitation was found, in particular when the colour preview preceded the orientation preview. These findings are discussed in relation to the literature, in particular the Guided Search model (Wolfe et al 1989 Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 15 419-433; Wolfe 1994 Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 1 202-238).