4 ms·

Pretty impressive results for the terms I searched for. Unfortunately, the design made me temporarily go blind. In all seriousness, the name is pretty horrible

by walesmd 18y ago

Pretty impressive results for the terms I searched for. Unfortunately, the design made me temporarily go blind. In all seriousness, the name is pretty horrible and I "feel" as if I am using a website, not a tool. Google feels like a tool - I get in an out quickly, it doesn't invade my flow. Your application (and others, like Mahalo) are so visually invasive I would never use them, no matter the results that we returned. Not really a design thing - although it stems from the design - more like a workflow thing... I dunno, hard to describe.

smhinsey 18y ago
I agree about the name, but at the same time, DogPile was able to be successful for a time (maybe they still are? I have no idea) with what is arguably a worse name.
epi0Bauqu 18y ago
Thanks for the feedback. I would very much like it to be a "tool" as you describe. I've gone through many design iterations, and have tried to keep the "clutter" down to a minimum. I would be interested to know what specific design elements you think are contributing to this problem. I know you said it isn't really a design problem, but there has to be more to say about it :) Colors? The results on the right?
- pygy 18y ago
  The huge font size is reminiscent of text intended for small children, which combined with the colorful logo makes the site look childish in my eyes. It's furthermore bigger than most text on the web, which makes it paradoxically harder to read for me. Flashy stuff tends to catch the attention of young people, but it tends to be tiring past a certain age (I'm 29). It also reduces information density, but this may be intentional. That said, the results are very good, the classification by topic well done, and the small descriptions are a good alternative to the usual SERP extracts. I had troubles with queries typed in French (It turned mostly results in English), but I assume you're focusing on the English language at the moment. Besides, the layout is clean and unobtrusive. I agree with axod and aroxwell regarding caching (one "batch" of results ahead should be enough)and pagination, and with ambulatorybird regarding the length and lack of fluidity of the name. At least one these characteristics should be dropped. Edit: rearranged stuff.
- calambrac 18y ago
  For me, the highlight-and-underline-on-hover effect is very distracting. It would be nice if the search entry field had a stronger visual separation from the search results. There also needs to be a stronger visual separation between each search result. This might just be that I'm so heavily conditioned by Google, but I'm thrown off by the results being so far from the left edge of the screen. Also, the red, it's a little harsh, and the font size, it's a little big. Otherwise, though, just playing around, this seems like a really nice search engine, the results seem great. If I didn't think it had a lot of promise, I wouldn't have posted a critique.
  - asmosoinio 18y ago
    Regarding the "highlight-and-underline-on-hover effect", I liked that. It is really nice that the whole text area works as a link, clicking on a hit is easier. And the highlight, well, highlights that. Works for me.
    - netcan 18y ago
      Works for me too. But I would use a softer highlight.
- walesmd 18y ago
  I think the font size is the most obtrusive to begin with - it's just insanely huge. I'm a Web 2.0 fan as much as the next guy and think most websites use a font size that is to small but... ouch. I think that would be a good place to start - once you do that you may find that the mouseovers are distracting or jump around way to much now that your line-heights are smaller. Jury seems to be out on those, personally I'm not a fan but enough people said they do like them that it's a questionable change. I think limiting the use of mouseovers could be valuable. By making off-site links (the actual SERPs) not have a mouseover while making in-site links (narrowing of categories, the more... link to activate BOSS, etc) could offer a subconcious identifier to your users as to what the next action will actually do.
markm 18y ago
I disagree, I think it has the quirkiness, the edge to actually make people use it. I also don't find it visually invasive.
- inovica 18y ago
  I agree with you. I really like it. Worked well for me. I'm also incredibly impressed with the results. Is this a search engine grown from the ground up with its own crawler or is it using an existing dataset? If self-created this must be worth something right now
  - paraschopra 18y ago
    The search engine seems to have been built on top of Yahoo BOSS
    - inovica 18y ago
      Ahh, ok - I was completely blown away by what looked like a 1-man creation :) Indeed, I still think its great for one person to have done this. Gonna look at Yahoo! Boss now. Thanks for this
    - aneesh 18y ago
      Yahoo! BOSS launched on July 9, 2008: http://www.ysearchblog.com/archives/000599.html http://www.ysearchblog.com/archives/000599.html Duck Duck Go's site says it was in development for about a year. If it was indeed built on top of BOSS, the developer must've spent 10 months doing pretty much nothing.
- netcan 18y ago
  I liked it too. Particularly the fact that it shows 4 results to start & lets you extend.
plusbryan 18y ago
I hear cuil.com is available...

by walesmd 18y ago

smhinsey 18y ago

I agree about the name, but at the same time, DogPile was able to be successful for a time (maybe they still are? I have no idea) with what is arguably a worse name.

epi0Bauqu 18y ago

Thanks for the feedback. I would very much like it to be a "tool" as you describe. I've gone through many design iterations, and have tried to keep the "clutter" down to a minimum. I would be interested to know what specific design elements you think are contributing to this problem. I know you said it isn't really a design problem, but there has to be more to say about it :) Colors? The results on the right?

pygy 18y ago
The huge font size is reminiscent of text intended for small children, which combined with the colorful logo makes the site look childish in my eyes. It's furthermore bigger than most text on the web, which makes it paradoxically harder to read for me. Flashy stuff tends to catch the attention of young people, but it tends to be tiring past a certain age (I'm 29). It also reduces information density, but this may be intentional. That said, the results are very good, the classification by topic well done, and the small descriptions are a good alternative to the usual SERP extracts. I had troubles with queries typed in French (It turned mostly results in English), but I assume you're focusing on the English language at the moment. Besides, the layout is clean and unobtrusive. I agree with axod and aroxwell regarding caching (one "batch" of results ahead should be enough)and pagination, and with ambulatorybird regarding the length and lack of fluidity of the name. At least one these characteristics should be dropped. Edit: rearranged stuff.
calambrac 18y ago
For me, the highlight-and-underline-on-hover effect is very distracting. It would be nice if the search entry field had a stronger visual separation from the search results. There also needs to be a stronger visual separation between each search result. This might just be that I'm so heavily conditioned by Google, but I'm thrown off by the results being so far from the left edge of the screen. Also, the red, it's a little harsh, and the font size, it's a little big. Otherwise, though, just playing around, this seems like a really nice search engine, the results seem great. If I didn't think it had a lot of promise, I wouldn't have posted a critique.
- asmosoinio 18y ago
  Regarding the "highlight-and-underline-on-hover effect", I liked that. It is really nice that the whole text area works as a link, clicking on a hit is easier. And the highlight, well, highlights that. Works for me.
  - netcan 18y ago
    Works for me too. But I would use a softer highlight.
walesmd 18y ago
I think the font size is the most obtrusive to begin with - it's just insanely huge. I'm a Web 2.0 fan as much as the next guy and think most websites use a font size that is to small but... ouch. I think that would be a good place to start - once you do that you may find that the mouseovers are distracting or jump around way to much now that your line-heights are smaller. Jury seems to be out on those, personally I'm not a fan but enough people said they do like them that it's a questionable change. I think limiting the use of mouseovers could be valuable. By making off-site links (the actual SERPs) not have a mouseover while making in-site links (narrowing of categories, the more... link to activate BOSS, etc) could offer a subconcious identifier to your users as to what the next action will actually do.

markm 18y ago

I disagree, I think it has the quirkiness, the edge to actually make people use it. I also don't find it visually invasive.

inovica 18y ago
I agree with you. I really like it. Worked well for me. I'm also incredibly impressed with the results. Is this a search engine grown from the ground up with its own crawler or is it using an existing dataset? If self-created this must be worth something right now
- paraschopra 18y ago
  The search engine seems to have been built on top of Yahoo BOSS
  - inovica 18y ago
    Ahh, ok - I was completely blown away by what looked like a 1-man creation :) Indeed, I still think its great for one person to have done this. Gonna look at Yahoo! Boss now. Thanks for this
  - aneesh 18y ago
    Yahoo! BOSS launched on July 9, 2008: http://www.ysearchblog.com/archives/000599.html http://www.ysearchblog.com/archives/000599.html Duck Duck Go's site says it was in development for about a year. If it was indeed built on top of BOSS, the developer must've spent 10 months doing pretty much nothing.
netcan 18y ago
I liked it too. Particularly the fact that it shows 4 results to start & lets you extend.

plusbryan 18y ago

I hear cuil.com is available...