User Experience Monitor

Browse vs Search - The Evolution Away from Serendipity

There's an interesting aricle in The Economist's Online Magazine "Intelligent Life" by Ian Leslie on how Internet may be hampering innovation.  He points out that as search engines like Google and social networks like Facebook give us back more of what they guess we want (rather than what we may need) we end up in a less varied and diverse world - at least online.  Many innovations come about by serendipity, and the Web is moving away from that, and more towards a tailored, personalized experience.

I am not sure I buy the entire argument, as many Web users (including myself) find a way to "discover" information in innovative ways, even using Search alone.  But it is interesting as a framework for the larger issue - the move towards Search and away from Browse as a model for behavior on the Web.

Do we want tailored? Is personalized always good?  Possibly not.  Check out Leslie's article and see for yourself:

The Search for Serendipity

Tracking Google's Influence: A Review of 3 Books on the Search Giant

This is an interesting article  by Daniel Soar in the London Review of Books about the influence of Google.  He reviews three books out this year: "The Googlisation of Everything (and Why We Should Worry)" by Siva Vaidhyanathan, "In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works and Shapes Our Lives" by Steven Levy, and "I’m Feeling Lucky: The Confessions of Google Employee Number 59" by Douglas Edward, and analyzes what they're saying collectively about the search gian.

I love his assertion near the end of this article that: "Google is getting cleverer precisely because it is so big."  This is the antithesis of what most analysts think about Google!  How does he come to this conclusion?  You'll just have to read the article.

 

US Digital Trends in 2010

Comscore just released their report on trends in the US digital marketplace - "U.S. Digital Year in Review."

Top trends reported incude in this latest report include:

• Although portals are still large in online (measured by total time spent online/day), the general shift away from portals to social media and entertainment sites is a major trend.
• Facebook takes the lead on Engagement (no surprise), with 180 million visitors/month. Facebook now accounts for over 12% of the time spent online in the US.
• Smartphone adoption surges past 25 percent penetration in the US. One third of Americans now access mobile browsers and applications.
• In the area of search, 2010 saw the integration of real- time search, improved blended search results and other new search modules, all of which have enriched the search experience.
• Online TV viewing is showing significant growth in 2010.  On an average day in December 2010, more than 88 million Americans watched online video, up 32 % from a year earlier.

Download a copy of the report on comScore's Website.

 

A Targeted Site for Usability

The User Experience Monitor is now part of the "pond" known as the UX Pond.  This interesting new site has a targeted (they call it "acute") sesarch feature that lets you find listings of usability-related blogs, discussions, articles, events, tools, and other resources.

Or, as UX Pond puts it, "why search the ocean when the answer's in the pond?"

Next time you're looking for an answer related to User Experience, check out UX Pond's specialized usability search feature.

QuickLook: Google's New 'Search as You Type' Feature

Google has recently launched a new feature that may shake the Web industry, from how search happens on sites, to how users across the Web get to sites, and it looks like this:

The feature, known as Google Instant allows a user entering a keyword term to see a dynamically changing screen as s/he types in the search text field.

Unlike other iterations of "type ahead" search that simply show the user most popular search terms through a pull-down menu, this feature has much more going on under the hood: the entire screen of search results change as you type.

Now, a dynamically changing screen can either be a great thing, or a not-so-great thing. Will users adapt to it? Like it? Hate it? The good aspect is that you can instantly fine-tune your search to get something...well..different than you had originally intended.  The negative aspect is that users may or may not understand what is happening right away.  Also, my experience in usability testing has shown me that many adult users are bothered when an interface changes rapidly, especially if they don't understand why it is changing.  It could potentially make some users nervous.

Nevertheless, I believe Google's latest feature  will have many long-term implications for search engine optimization and search advertising, as well as how competitors view the whole "search animal."

Follow more coverage about Google Instant on: PC World

 

 

What the Search Engine Wars Teach Us About Web Design

Recently, Google and Bing have been feeding off each other's design work. Well, let's say Google has been feeding off of Bing. The New York Times, among other publications, have been in turn feeding off the "Search Engine Wars."

Case in point: Google "lifted" the idea for the left-navigation of results from Microsoft's Bing a few months ago. My question is: is this so bad? I think this kind of derivative one-upmanship is at the core of the growth of the Web - everybody uses everybody else as a stepping stone to get where they want to go.

In the case of the Internet, that kind of strategy advances the collective user experience of the Web, provided the features and design used represent a good user experience. 

 

via www.nytimes.com

 

What's in a Look? Google's Recent Changes Make Waves

Anyone using Google consistently in the last few months realized at some point, things had changed when they introduced the new "Bing-like" look and feel - the left-hand column of options. Google added tiny little icons and categories for a search term, to presumably help the user navigate the vast array of choices s/he faces when doing a text search.  

The questions I have are: 1) Is this an improvement? (does it actually help you as user of Google search find what you're looking for, and 2) Will it impact how users become used to seeing search options presented in the future, within a site?  The Web world seems to move in synch with Google, and it would be hard to imagine this doesn't have an impact (even though Microsoft's Bing did it first).

A recent article on PC World points out that there isn't anything terribly earth-shaking about the recent change to Google's home page: they simply cribbed off the idea of the photographic background from Bing.  But the outcries are numerous:

Google's New Look: Why is Everybody So Upset? 

The Rise and Rise of Search

As we all know, Search is big.  Just how big was pointed out by this recent article from PCMag.com: Google Tops Search in 2009, which cites such statistics as a 46% growth in overall searches, and 22 billion searches in the US alone.  Everybody, it seems, is searching.

What's the implication for your Web-based business?

While it's still important to design for navigation in and around your site, users are ever more dependent on search as a primary navigation strategy. I'm always surprised when clients give short shrift to their onsite search results.  More often than not, search is the quickest route between Point A and Point B, or at least that's what users are hoping. So...Don't neglect your Web-based search!