New Google Interface: Bubbly like Ask3D, but I like it
It seems that after the usual gazillion of user testing the folks at Google finally settled on a new shiny search interface. In short, I like it!
We have to admit, the choice of colors, the shape of the buttons, and the use of big text resembles a little the Ask 3D interface that we launched in Ask.com in June 2007, but I think the visual impact is very nice and clean.
The menu on the left allows you to narrow down your search (and I am sure it is sorted by what people use the most for each query) in categories like News, Videos or Images, explore more about the topic with some related searches or specify a date range for the results.
Although the interface changed they apparently abandoned the idea of “abusing” the #fragment in the URL to run the searches through AJAX (as some sites like Collecta are now doing to increase their SEO/page-rank) like they were testing a few months ago. I am glad of this choice, it was just confusing.
My only question is why are they leaving the top menu in the result page. It is clear that by then the user had no intention of logging in or clicking on the Gmail link, and if they do want to switch to a different search category it can be done more comfortably using the left menu. I would remove it.
Also the homepage has been updated with a more colorful and bubbly style, that matches the results page.
However, some users w
ill see yet a different (and much uglier, in my opinion) version of it, which resembles the old-style Google homepage but with no upper menus nor bottom links.Those links will fade in if you leave your cursor for about a third of a second in their areas. Apparently a lot of studies went into that, up to the length of the pause (in milliseconds!) after which the text fades in.
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Search engine rankings are never really all that surprising. Google is definitely first, Yahoo! is definitely second and Bing comes in third every month, without fail. Sometimes Yahoo! or Bing will rise or fall a little bit and one will have the benefit of the other’s loss, but it’s never a massive drop.
January’s rankings were also on the same lines. Google came first, Yahoo! came second and Microsoft came third, experiencing a small gain over the previous month. However, in a most unusual turn of events Microsoft gained at the expense of Google for the first time.
Based on ComScore (via CNet), Google’s dominant share of the search market slipped by 0.3 percentage points to 65.4 percent of all searches conducted in the U.S. As a result, Bing increased by 0.6 percentage points to 11.3 percent of all searches. Yahoo! lost another 0.3 percent, dropping to 17 percent of all searches.
Microsoft Bing has experienced almost consistent growth since it launched last May, rising from 8.4 percent in June to its current 11.3 percent. Bill Gates once told the press that the search engine created by microsoft is the best product till date created by Microsoft. Hope that turns out true. People are already fascinated by the interface provided by Bing.