upgrading the search results page

I cannot believe that Google’s results page hasn’t change in almost two decades. The only noticeable modification is the adding of video and news results, which can’t be considered an improvement of the way the search results are displayed. “Efficient”, “to the point” and “without distractions” are the pro-arguments for Google’s results page. I find it to be rudimentary and low on information. So was born the idea for NovaGoogle.

NovaGoogle is a project to provide a better results page, keeping its simplicity and increasing to the maximum its efficiency.

The purposes of web search:

1. Finding out an information
2. Getting to a web page

NovaGoogle’s goal is, while using Google’s search results, to minimize the user’s effort to get the information or web page he’s looking for and overall improve his web search experience.

Finding an information

When you use Google to find out some piece of information, you perform the search and then you start clicking the results one by one, leaving the results page and coming back to it over and over again. Your only hints about the relevancy of a result are its title, a short, fragmented description and the url. Plus your trust in Google.

NovaGoogle’s goal is to deliver that information to the user without the need to leave the results page. Here are the ways in which this is achieved:

1. Longer descriptions composed of phrases with meaning, with the ability to extend them by clicking on the “more” button. In many cases the user will find the information inside those descriptions.



2. The whole relevant content of the page it’s available into the results page by clicking the “full” button. No ads, no link lists or any other distractions.



3. Preview the page – the results web page is also available inside the results page through a resizable iframe by clicking the “preview” button. So the user can see the original web page, even navigate inside it, without having to leave the results page.

Getting to a web page

We’re often using Google to go to a web page we know about but don’t have the url. This use case is more of a challenge because, in most cases, these are home pages, lacking textual information for a useful description, like yahoo.com or youtube.com. Users mostly check the url to determine if a given result it what they are looking for.

Here is what NovaGoogle is doing to improve the user experience in this case:

1. Wiki descriptions are provided for the results from sources outside those pages, like AboutUs.org.



2. The web pages’ logos are showed next to the description. The logo of a webpage is much easier to recognize than anything else.



3. Thumbnail previews will show the results page so that the user can recognize it. Hold the mouse on the preview button to see the preview thumbnail.

This is the end of NovaGoogle’s brief description, try it and give me your opinion.

About me:

• My name is Ionut Bilica, I’m a computer engineer in Craiova, Romania.
• Other worth mentioning projects I’ve done: Craiova Map, an interactive, commercial map of my  home town – a java applet-servlet application.
• You can email me at ionut.bilica@gmail.com

Other details on NovaGoogle:

• I’m sorry for the inelegant html, css and js code. Is not really what I do for a living, some of the stuff I had to learn specifically for this project.
• I don’t have Google’s permission to take the search results from them. I hope Google will not block me, or worse. It’s not a commercial project and it will surely not drive a lot of traffic. So please don’t be evil.
• The results page obviously uses JavaScript. I am a big fan of Google Chrome browser, I recommend it for this page and all the other web pages. If not, use Firefox.
• I lot of my friends said to me “you realize… your website requires 1280×1024 or higher screen resolution”. I do realize, and I’m ok with it.
• Lastly: this is an experiment, so I would love to hear your opinion. Comment here or email me at ionut.bilica@gmail.com