Chris Sherman (and crew?) has done quite a fantastic job of putting together a lot of industry experts and asking them, “Where do you see search evolving by 2010?” I don’t have a resume that reads out like any of the people she asked (hey, it’s not bad you should ask me some time ;P) but I do have an opinion about most things technology related and so I’d like to contribute to the conversation.
1. Expose index metadata or at least give users the option to see it.
Don’t be afraid of Ajax, use browser detection and customization wisely, give me useless crap to turn on and off, if you think that’s not important, please see Compiz-Fusion. As I scan the data, I’d like more metadata exposed on the results page that let me know more about each link, just because Google displays the 10 most relevant results on earth, doesn’t mean we click on the one we are looking for the very first time.
- Is it “Hot?” Let’s use classic forum technology for showing how popular certain meme’s are, you don’t think people care? See Techmeme or Digg or Technorati!
- Did many user’s click the back button?
- How long did it take for them to click the back button?
- How Popular is the site?
- How old is the site?
When I roll-over/hover above a result, shouldn’t the search engine give me more information about that link if I tell it to do so?
Please see picture below.
2. Endless Scroll
One thing Microsoft did correct with its search engine, and then quickly modified it back (go figure) and didn’t give its user’s a choice as to whether they liked it or not, and thus wanted to keep it, was the endless scroll. This is the most incredible thing in search I’ve ever seen. They still use it on their image search which in my opinion is what makes Live image search better than Google’s images search.
One thing that you could argue is that perhaps even with images Google is returning a better index, however, using a 30 inch monitor at 1600p (WQXGA) resolution I get 91 results to choose from using Live image search and using Google’s page I only get 24 results and then the entire bottom of my screen is wasted. As I note above, it’s not always about who can display the best set of results, rather, who can get me to what I want in as few as clicks as possible, and in as little time as possible. The one item I am after is more important than the 20 that are most similar to what I’m after, having a larger set of results (best at top of course) without having to click anything is better.
You would think that with the billions and billions of dollars that Google has invested into its search it would utilize screen resolution detection and behavior a little better.
3. Give me back my own data!
I was closely following something called "attention data" before. I had made suggestions that were pretty much not paid too much attention. With all of the data that Google collects an analyzes into set of data in which it uses to better give it’s user’s results, don’t you think each person could contribute to that even more than Google itself? I know that sounds a bit confusing.
Basically, think of it like this: Google recently announced that they would pay people to go out and take pictures of and add metadata about local businesses so it could add to it’s online mapping properties. Why can’t we do that about our own searches. If you note something about my behavior that you think is relevant to my results, expose those items to me, and let me tweak them.
After you give enough power to me, always give me a reset back to default button though because by the time I’m done playing with it, I’ll have Lycos Era results.
Finally, local data could play a large role in the future. In addition to secure wallet services, we should have an abundant amount of other local secure services that works on a standardized framework to interact with services other than Google. Our mere interaction with services should not be served to silos of data, but put into a standardized framework for all to utilize and to let user’s customize their online privacy allocation.
GeekSpeaker 
Leave a comment