5 ms·

Would love any feedback you have :)

by ryes 4y ago

nimonian 4y ago
I found the sideswiping way too sensitive on mobile: when I just want to swipe right once I go through two maybe three pages. To scroll right just once I need to make a concerted effort to swipe just the right amount.
- ryes 4y ago
  What mobile device and browser are you using? I've only tested on iPhone for mobile.
- austinjp 4y ago
  Same. Firefox on Android.
  - ryes 4y ago
    Thank you for letting me know. I think it is now fixed. Please try again now. https://swurl.com/?q=firefox https://swurl.com/?q=firefox
    - primarydonkey 4y ago
      Firefox on Android here. Scrolling to the next section works well but scrolling to a previous one feels too sticky now (requires too long of a swipe to the right for me at least). What a great project, I'm really enjoying it. Well done!
      - ryes 4y ago
        Glad you are enjoying it, thank you for your feedback and help testing! Ok will test some more. The problem is kinda Firefox actually. Swurl is using this newish css snap feature, but Firefox's implementation is a bit buggy. Sorry...
        john-doe 4y ago
        Related: you can use `overscroll-behavior` to prevent the browser gestures to go back/forward in history: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/overscroll-behavior https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/overscroll-...
        ryes 4y ago
        Thank you for point that out! That could be helpful. Do you think I should implement that? Right now I still use the browser gestures too. I'm just getting better swiping inside vs swiping on the screen edge I guess...
        john-doe 4y ago
        Something like `overscroll-behavior-x: contain;` for the scrolling container?
        john-doe 4y ago
        In your case, for the `main` element. Note that I was referring to desktop browsers gestures (Chromium), but that might help with mobile ones as well.
        ryes 4y ago
        Ok I added that. Please try it now and let me know if that works better for you now.
        john-doe 4y ago
        Perfect!
goldenchrome 4y ago
Is it intentional that each site section is only 80% of the screen width? Definitely make that 100% width. Phones are narrow enough already.
- ryes 4y ago
  Thank you for the feedback. There is a peek of more content to indicate it is swipe-able to see more. Kind of like websites do with images, like Netflix for example. Do you think if it was 100%, then people would still understand they could swipe?
  - goldenchrome 4y ago
    Your site is simple to use. This is good. It also means that users won't need much help before they are proficient. But by reducing the screen width, you're punishing your users forever. You can solve this by teaching users about the interaction up front. Try placing some text somewhere on the screen that encourages users to swipe. You can hide it once they've done it once. Alternatively, shortly after page load you can animate the page to peek the next column of content. It will require a little playing around so that the instruction is clear but unobtrusive.
    - ryes 4y ago
      What phone are you using right now? That would be helpful for me to consider. I did increase the column width from 320 to 335 pixels based on your feedback. It does feel better. But if I make it too wide, then the content can get too big I feel. I'll be thinking more about this feedback and will test some more. Thank you!
      - justusthane 4y ago
        Just for an extra data point, I really like it the way it is. Seeing a peek of the next column to give an intuitive understanding that you can swipe for more is really neat (and I'm on an iPhone 8, so not a particularly large screen).
marginalia_nu 4y ago
Neat. Search UX is at the same time extremely difficult and criminally under-explored I feel. I realize this is hard with third party data, but something I'm really interested in presenting the relationships between data, and offering means of exploring them. One gripe with this design is that this page can't be scrolled on a PC. Or rather, it can only be scrolled vertically. To scroll horizontally, you need to grab an auto-vanishing single-pixel scroll bar. Although that's not really your fault as much as the browser designers' fixation with minimalist GUIs. I also think it's difficult to have these many images in an interface, especially brightly colorful images of vastly different sizes with faces. They are all powerful attention attractors, and as a result, and the result is the (excellent) structure of the website doesn't quite come to flourish as much as it could. But as I said, search UX is extremely difficult. This is a cool new take.
- ryes 4y ago
  Thank you for the detailed feedback marginalia_nu! Yes I agree search UX has not been evolving much. I wish it would. What version of Windows and what browser are you using? How old is the computer? Maybe it is something I could improve. I was figuring most modern computers can scroll horizontally well, but that isn't always the case. But I guess I am trying to push the design into the future...
kloud 4y ago
Congrats, this looks great! I think on the desktop the columns could be wider, so the preview text wraps on fewer lines and more results fit in vertically for quick eye scanning. Did you think about having the ability to display multiple primary search engines besides Google like DuckDuckGo? A while ago I switched to DDG as my default search engine and learned to trust that the search results are good enough. On occasion, I have a FOMO and fall back to Google anyway. It would be a neat feature to have them shown side-by-side. Another example is Brave Search. I like the ideas behind it, but will not experiment with it as a default engine as an early adopter due to possible friction. With a meta engine like Swurl I could keep having Google/DDG as the primary engine and include other emerging engines like Brave Search in another column to take it for a low friction/risk test drive (perhaps configured through URL parameters).
- ryes 4y ago
  Thank you for the great feedback! I would love to have a different search source, but DuckDuckGo and Brave don't give API access to their results. I would definitely add those if they opened up access to Swurl. Know anyone that could help me with that?
  - kloud 4y ago
    I was so excited I didn't think it through :) This is where wishes meet hard reality. I believe DDG has its own crawler. But they also rely on results from Bing for which they probably don't have rights to provide an API. So at this point the only viable alternative would seem to be the Bing API.
    - ryes 4y ago
      Just added Bing, you can switch to it from the menu on the top right to enable Bing instead of Google. Please try it out and let me know if that helps you.

Would love any feedback you have :)

by ryes 4y ago

Would love any feedback you have :)

I found the sideswiping way too sensitive on mobile: when I just want to swipe right once I go through two maybe three pages. To scroll right just once I need to make a concerted effort to swipe just the right amount.

ryes 4y ago
What mobile device and browser are you using? I've only tested on iPhone for mobile.
austinjp 4y ago
Same. Firefox on Android.
- ryes 4y ago
  Thank you for letting me know. I think it is now fixed. Please try again now. https://swurl.com/?q=firefox https://swurl.com/?q=firefox
  - primarydonkey 4y ago
    Firefox on Android here. Scrolling to the next section works well but scrolling to a previous one feels too sticky now (requires too long of a swipe to the right for me at least). What a great project, I'm really enjoying it. Well done!
    - ryes 4y ago
      Glad you are enjoying it, thank you for your feedback and help testing! Ok will test some more. The problem is kinda Firefox actually. Swurl is using this newish css snap feature, but Firefox's implementation is a bit buggy. Sorry...
      - john-doe 4y ago
        Related: you can use `overscroll-behavior` to prevent the browser gestures to go back/forward in history: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/overscroll-behavior https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/overscroll-...
        ryes 4y ago
        Thank you for point that out! That could be helpful. Do you think I should implement that? Right now I still use the browser gestures too. I'm just getting better swiping inside vs swiping on the screen edge I guess...
        john-doe 4y ago
        Something like `overscroll-behavior-x: contain;` for the scrolling container?
        john-doe 4y ago
        In your case, for the `main` element. Note that I was referring to desktop browsers gestures (Chromium), but that might help with mobile ones as well.
        ryes 4y ago
        Ok I added that. Please try it now and let me know if that works better for you now.
        john-doe 4y ago
        Perfect!

goldenchrome 4y ago

Is it intentional that each site section is only 80% of the screen width? Definitely make that 100% width. Phones are narrow enough already.

ryes 4y ago
Thank you for the feedback. There is a peek of more content to indicate it is swipe-able to see more. Kind of like websites do with images, like Netflix for example. Do you think if it was 100%, then people would still understand they could swipe?
- goldenchrome 4y ago
  Your site is simple to use. This is good. It also means that users won't need much help before they are proficient. But by reducing the screen width, you're punishing your users forever. You can solve this by teaching users about the interaction up front. Try placing some text somewhere on the screen that encourages users to swipe. You can hide it once they've done it once. Alternatively, shortly after page load you can animate the page to peek the next column of content. It will require a little playing around so that the instruction is clear but unobtrusive.
  - ryes 4y ago
    What phone are you using right now? That would be helpful for me to consider. I did increase the column width from 320 to 335 pixels based on your feedback. It does feel better. But if I make it too wide, then the content can get too big I feel. I'll be thinking more about this feedback and will test some more. Thank you!
    - justusthane 4y ago
      Just for an extra data point, I really like it the way it is. Seeing a peek of the next column to give an intuitive understanding that you can swipe for more is really neat (and I'm on an iPhone 8, so not a particularly large screen).

marginalia_nu 4y ago

Neat. Search UX is at the same time extremely difficult and criminally under-explored I feel. I realize this is hard with third party data, but something I'm really interested in presenting the relationships between data, and offering means of exploring them. One gripe with this design is that this page can't be scrolled on a PC. Or rather, it can only be scrolled vertically. To scroll horizontally, you need to grab an auto-vanishing single-pixel scroll bar. Although that's not really your fault as much as the browser designers' fixation with minimalist GUIs. I also think it's difficult to have these many images in an interface, especially brightly colorful images of vastly different sizes with faces. They are all powerful attention attractors, and as a result, and the result is the (excellent) structure of the website doesn't quite come to flourish as much as it could. But as I said, search UX is extremely difficult. This is a cool new take.

ryes 4y ago
Thank you for the detailed feedback marginalia_nu! Yes I agree search UX has not been evolving much. I wish it would. What version of Windows and what browser are you using? How old is the computer? Maybe it is something I could improve. I was figuring most modern computers can scroll horizontally well, but that isn't always the case. But I guess I am trying to push the design into the future...

kloud 4y ago

Congrats, this looks great! I think on the desktop the columns could be wider, so the preview text wraps on fewer lines and more results fit in vertically for quick eye scanning. Did you think about having the ability to display multiple primary search engines besides Google like DuckDuckGo? A while ago I switched to DDG as my default search engine and learned to trust that the search results are good enough. On occasion, I have a FOMO and fall back to Google anyway. It would be a neat feature to have them shown side-by-side. Another example is Brave Search. I like the ideas behind it, but will not experiment with it as a default engine as an early adopter due to possible friction. With a meta engine like Swurl I could keep having Google/DDG as the primary engine and include other emerging engines like Brave Search in another column to take it for a low friction/risk test drive (perhaps configured through URL parameters).

ryes 4y ago
Thank you for the great feedback! I would love to have a different search source, but DuckDuckGo and Brave don't give API access to their results. I would definitely add those if they opened up access to Swurl. Know anyone that could help me with that?
- kloud 4y ago
  I was so excited I didn't think it through :) This is where wishes meet hard reality. I believe DDG has its own crawler. But they also rely on results from Bing for which they probably don't have rights to provide an API. So at this point the only viable alternative would seem to be the Bing API.
  - ryes 4y ago
    Just added Bing, you can switch to it from the menu on the top right to enable Bing instead of Google. Please try it out and let me know if that helps you.