Search Engine Usability Taly Sharon

3 Agenda Search Engines Issues Search Engines UI Paradigms –Including Ajax, query formulation and results Demonstration links (see References

Search Engines Issues How to phrase query? How to interpret query? How to present results? Additional Problem: Web Users (see next)!

Web Users?  Make poor queries –short (3.3 terms average) –imprecise terms –sub-optimal syntax (80% without operators) –low effort  Wide variance on –Needs –Expectations –Knowledge –Bandwidth (and platforms)  Specific behavior –85% look over one result screen only –78% of queries not modified

Search Engines UI Paradigms Simple  Overloaded Keywords  Natural (NLP) User Control  Automatic Static  Dynamic (Ajax) Textual  Graphical

Simple  Overloaded Google: Lean and Mean?

Yahoo!

search.Yahoo.com

Google in 1998 – looking up at Yahoo!? Source: Internet archive’s Wayback machine

Google Personalized

Advanced

MSN Search Builder

Windows?

Search Engines UI Paradigms Simple  Overloaded Keywords  Natural (NLP) User Control  Automatic Static  Dynamic (Ajax) Textual  Graphical

Keywords  Natural (NLP) Problem: How to formulate query? Solution 1: use Refine, Google Suggest Solution 2: use questions and answers engines - natural language processing (NLP)

Excite

Google Suggest As you type – you get query suggestions and number of results per query. labs.google.com/suggest

Q&A Engines (Natural Language) General SEs Q&A: –Google –Yahoo –MSN Q&A Engines: –Ask –Brainboost –Lexxe

Google, MSN, Yahoo

Ask

BrainBoost

Lexxe

(Dis)Advantages Advantages: –quick and dirty answer. Disadvantages: –often fail –Inaccurate Who murdered JFK “Why the Fed Murdered JFK” (brainboost) Who is the prime minister of Israel? Ariel Sharon (May 2006) –non-verified sources –slow

Search Engines UI Paradigms Simple  Overloaded Keywords  Natural (NLP) User Control  Automatic Static  Dynamic (Ajax) Textual  Graphical

Meta Search Engine (MSE) MetaCrawler YahooWeb CrawlerOpen TextLycosInfoSeekInktomiGalaxyExcite Google · Yahoo · Ask About · LookSmart · Overture FindWhat

Vivisimo: link: Not supported?

Problems of MSEs Limited support of advanced search options. Limited number (~10) of results from each search engine. Sponsored results from the SEs are not highlighted. ?Does the average user know this?

Query Results Examples of User Interface in Query Results’ pages : –Google –Clusty/Vivisimo –A9 –Exalead –KartOO (see Graphical)

Clusty

Search Engines UI Paradigms Simple  Overloaded Keywords  Natural (NLP) User Control  Automatic Static  Dynamic (Ajax) Textual  Graphical

Ajax Asynchronous JavaScript and XML

Ajax Asynchronous JavaScript and XML A Web 2.0 technology Fast (real-time) interactive page updates - directly from the database Ajax applications Try it yourself - Google Web Toolkit (GWT)

Example Ajax Applications Google Maps/Local (Yahoo, A9) Housing Maps Google Suggest Windows live Yahoo! Instant Search GMail And many more..

HousingMaps Mash-up of Google maps and Craigs list rentals Mash-up are websites that are built from pieces of other websites

Ajax Pros/Cons Pros –Interactivity! Cons –might easily break the expected behavior of the browser's back button –difficult for a user to bookmark a particular state of the application –users might experience delay in the interface of the web application –requires users to have JavaScript (or ActiveX) enabled in their browsers –a challenge for developers interested in adhering to WAI accessibility guidelines.

Yahoo! Instant Example of slow reaction Good implementation of “back” instant.search.yahoo.com

AlltheWeb LiveSearch Yahoo’s AlltheWeb now has a new Livesearch feature. Livesearch It takes the Google Suggest approach a step further.Google Suggest You will instantly see the results to the right side.

Search Engines UI Paradigms Simple  Overloaded Keywords  Natural (NLP) User Control  Automatic Static  Dynamic (Ajax) Textual  Graphical

Visual/Graphical Search Engines KartOO TouchGraph

Kartoo Legend

Examples 1.Query: “Taly Sharon” –Main webpage, –co-authors (selker, lieberman, frank, lockerd, etc.) –Conferences (IFLA, CHI, SigGraph, etc.) –Related keywords (mostly from research/papers) –Other related: GoogleGuide.com 2.Query: (website)

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(Dis)Advantages Advantages: –very visual, easy to detect trends. –Useful to find connections Disadvantages: –Requires training –Easy disorientation

Demonstration Links Google Yahoo Yahoo Search Interface search.yahoo.comsearch.yahoo.com Google 1998 (from Internet Archive) Yahoo Advanced search.yahoo.com/web/advanced?ei=UTF-8search.yahoo.com/web/advanced?ei=UTF-8 Google Personalized MSN Search Builder search.msn.co.ilsearch.msn.co.il Excite Google Suggest labs.google.com/suggestlabs.google.com/suggest Ask Brainboost Lexxe Dogpile Vivisimo Clusty A9 Exalead Google Maps maps.google.commaps.google.com Housing Maps A9 maps maps.a9.commaps.a9.com Windows live Yahoo Instant instant.search.yahoo.cominstant.search.yahoo.com Alltheweb Livesearch livesearch.alltheweb.com/?ek=1livesearch.alltheweb.com/?ek=1 Kartoo

References Ajax – wikipedia markets/index.php?p=27http://blogs.zdnet.com/micro- markets/index.php?p= AnalystDay.pdfhttp://yhoo.client.shareholder.com/downloads/2 006AnalystDay.pdf stmhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/ stm /bertinoro8.pdfhttp:// /bertinoro8.pdf