Comments on: How to improve Google’s search UI

By: Philip Haine

Philip Haine — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 21:50:44 +0000

Google recently added something like this. Hover over a magnifying glass and you see a miniature of the destination page.

It’s not quite the same, but it’s on the same track.

By: Ameer

Ameer — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 21:06:42 +0000

Look into the “Wolfram Alpha Google” and “Googlepedia” firefox extensions, they do something similar to this.

By: Philip Haine

Philip Haine — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:19:34 +0000

Thanks so much for the props, Chris B!

And thanks to the viewzi reference. It’s not quite the same thing since you still have to open the page to see if the result you want is there.

The interesting thing to me is that it shows that the problem of optimally performing search is not completely solved; that there is still room for more innovation. I am sure something will leapfrog the design that I proposed.

Although I didn’t include it in my mockup, Google should be able to do this while preserving ad real estate. It is possible that they’d get more click-throughs, because the cost to the user of peeking at what’s there is lower.

The nature of innovation says that if there is a significantly better way of helping people find what they need, someone will do it sooner or later. At that point Google will have no choice but to respond with something at least as strong.

By the way, any developer could actually create a prototype of the above design using Google’s api’s. I’d love to see this in action!

Best regards,
Philip
Twitter: @dphaine

By: chris b.

chris b. — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 23:42:14 +0000

I am aware of an industrial directory that has been doing this for years. he sells them as ads, but any small advertiser there would/should view it as a quick preview to thier website/services.

here is another search engine that is doing something like this already;
http://www.viewzi.com/search/power_grid/website%20design%20services%20nh

I cannot see google doing this as it depletes serious cash flow real estate (sponsored links). in the days of old, they may have, but now that shareholders own them, I dont see google dumping that real estate. i could be wrong??

All this to say…it IS an awesome idea & if viewzi.com could get some good PR, it might take off.

Thanks for sharing your ideas. they keep me up at night brainstorming, so keep ‘em coming!!

cb in NH