Search News

New Bing Design Being Tested

Some reports and screenshots are surfacing from searchers seeing a new user interface and look at Bing. Like with Google, these user interface (UI) experiments are probably being shown to a small fraction of searchers and responses are being measured. Whether any of the pictured changes will be adopte will depend on how users respond to them.

I can't see either version on any browser that I've checked, but from the screenshots, the main changes seem to be

• Bing Logo in upper left has part of the daily picture behind it in a small square rather than across the whole header
• The search box is more easily visible on the plain color background, but there are few databases listed above the box to switch to (just Images, Videos, and Shopping in one or Images and Videos in the other
• The links in the upper right are styled differently, with the gear icon for preferences smaller and the drop down menu for signing in larger
• Tabs for other databases under the search box are gone
• Another version has no image behind the logo and the database links at the top moved further to the left

Old UI:

New Experimental UI:

New Experimental UI on Right when signed in:

Google Advanced Search Showdown

Big changes are coming to the Google Advanced Search, but they have been intermittent in appearing and we may not yet see the final format. Right before Thanksgiving (here in the U.S.) there were numerous reports of the new advanced search but the appearance differed slightly (some had the descriptive text on the right and some did not, perhaps depending on browser and/or device). There were complaints about the loss of drop down menu functionality, the removal of the link search box, and many other unhappy advanced search users. The change seemed to roll in for most U.S. users at least between Nov. 19-23.

Then Google changed back to the former advanced search on Nov. 25 or 26. I have been checking since then to see if the new version might re-appear, and yesterday in one of my browsers (Internet Explorer 9) it came back (but not yet for me in other browsers or on other computers. At least there are now links at the bottom that mention link and similarity searching, but they just link to a page explaining how to use the link: and related: operators.

The new design looks more like some of Google's other newer designs and is perhaps more similar to a tablet interface. However, when I try actually using the new advanced search page, sorry Google, but it stinks. There are lots of little design and usability changes that make it more difficult to use, and it is definitely less instructive.

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New Google Interface Forgets Scholar

Tuesday, Google announced a new interface for its front page and search results, removing the black bar at the top with links to other databases and the options gear and moving those choices to a mouse-over, drop-down list that from the Google logo. I still do not see the change on any of my computers at home or on campus, but thanks to a trick posted on the Google Operating System blog, you can make the new interface appear by setting options in a cookie. It sounds like the intent is to make this a common interface across all Google properties. As Google says in the announcement, their goal is "making navigation and sharing super simple for people." (Note the addition of "sharing" which means that Google+ links and notes will be more prominent).

So I tried the new interface and compared it to the old. How well does it work for searchers? The old black bar at the top and its previous incarnations have made it easy for me to switch searches from one Google database to another. The new bar sort of works that way, but it has added several new links (none of which I use often) and removed several others (including those that I do). What has changed?

Some wording is different: "Web" is now "Search" and "Gmail" is just "Mail." But several databases have been removed:

• Blogs
• Scholar
• Groups
• Sites

The gear icon in the upper right hand corner of the home page that links to Search Settings, Advanced Search, and Language Tools is also gone from the new home page design. The Options gear shows up once you do a search. I don't mind not having Sites, since I don't use that, but switching a web search to a search in the Scholar, Blog, or Groups databases is a royal pain. Especially as an academic searcher, the loss of Scholar is significant. The Blogs database is available on the left if you expand the databases, but neither Scholar nor Groups is available there. See the screencast below for a comparison of old and new.

Exploring this change made me realized that Google really offers two places to search images and two places to search video. You can transfer your search from the Image database to "Photos" which gives you the results from Picasa Web Albums without requiring a log in. Note how the Video in the new interface has been moved to the end of the list. Again, you can transfer a search from the Video database to YouTube (for only YouTube videos and different ranking), but you cannot yet transfer from YouTube to the larger Google Video database.

And what's up with the News link? Why does that not transfer the search terms but instead just go to the Google News home page? Clicking the News link in the left margin works properly. Oh well, since I'm using a hack to get the new interface, perhaps these are all bugs that Google will fix before it is fully rolled out. Or so I hope.

App Search Engine Quixey

For the many people (at least in my part of the world) that do not yet own smart phones or run around with iPads or other tablets, the whole app store idea can seem strange way to spend lots of money for what you can already do on a computer. But with so much development occurring with apps, it is good to know what is available. So for those without an app consuming device and for those who just wish to browse the app market place when not on their device, enter App Search Engine Quixey. Still in beta, Quixey is a fascinating place to browse. It has a broad definition of apps and searches within the following categories:

• Android
• Chrome add-ons
  
• Firefox add-ons
  
• IE add-ons
  
• iPad
  
• iPhone
  
• Mac
• Palm
• Web
  
• Windows
  
• Windows Phone

Note that it includes web browser add-ons and general software programs for different operating systems as well as mobile apps. The ability to quickly view just what works on your platform (and for that matter see what runs on other platforms) helps make it easy to explore the apps marketplace.

Additional filters on the left include Price (fee or free), Related Searches, Flickr integrated apps, Apps with reviews at TechCrunch, products at Crunchbase, and Security Ratings from CheckPoint. The search results (the apps) are listed in one column and next to them is a column of "snippets" about the app.

The search technology itself takes a slightly different approach: "Quixey invented a new type of search, functional search, specifically for apps. Unlike other search engines, Quixey doesn't require users to know the name or exact description of that app- all users need to do is answer the search prompt, "What do you want to do?" Quixey produces the most relevant search results by scraping blogs, forums, social media and other sources to learn about each app. Our unique technology for app discovery provides users with search results dramatically better than traditional content based search."

Hat tip to Gary at INFOdocket for the alert to this great new search engine. See the Quixey promotional video below.

New Google News Settings and Source Look Ups

Google News has new search settings available that provide several new features. It lets searchers choose to specify certain news sources for exclusion or from which to get more or less news. In addition, for those news sources tagged as (blog) or (press release), searchers can also request exclusion of those whole groups, or fewer or more from either. While the blog limit has been available in the left hand margin for awhile, there is not other location to limit to press releases or to exclude them (the advanced news search does not have these options). Some are concerned that these new settings will cause users to exclude blogs and press releases (see Danny's comments on this in his Look Out Blogs: Google News Gains Options To Drop Blogs & Press Releases post).

Want to see these settings? Unlike a Google web search, where search settings can be saved as a cookie and do not require the searcher to log in, the new News settings require first logging in to an account. You also must be using the U.S. version.

While I am not yet sure if I'll use any of these settings on a regular basis, there is another great reason to log in and explore these settings. It finally provides a way to search within the sources for Google News. While others have compiled various lists, such as the recent list of sources compiled at Digital Inspiration, they often list sources only by their URL are typically incomplete (I checked four small news sources against that list and found at least one missing). Within the news search settings, just start typing the beginning of a source name (not just the URL), and a list of up to ten potential matches appears. Want to know if a news source is included in Google News? Log in, go to the News Settings, and start typing the first letters of the source name (and try any possible variants as well.)

See below (or check full post) for a 2.5 minute screencast of how some of these options work.

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