Including author in search for entries
You could use the Twig functions merge and default to merge the two sets of entries.

{% set entries = craft.entries.search(query).order('score')|default([]) %}
{% set authors = craft.users.search('fullName:*' ~ query ~ '*')|default([]) %}

{% if authors %}
    {% set results = entries|merge(authorArticles) %}
{% endif %}

&lt;p&gt;
    You have {{ results|length }} {{ results|length == 1 ? 'result' : 'results' }}.
&lt;/p&gt;


The default function is a handy stand-in for short circuit evaluation in twig, so that you can be sure to at least pass an empty array to merge.