1. www.sharon-it.com1 Search Engine Usability Taly Sharon www.sharon-it.com taly@sharon-it.com sharont@alum.mit.edu

2. www.sharon-it.com2

3. 3 Agenda Search Engines Issues Search Engines UI Paradigms –Including Ajax, query formulation and results Demonstration links (see www.sharon-it.com/new.html)www.sharon-it.com/new.html References

4. www.sharon-it.com4 Search Engines Issues How to phrase query? How to interpret query? How to present results? Additional Problem: Web Users (see next)!

5. www.sharon-it.com5 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

6. www.sharon-it.com6 Search Engines UI Paradigms Simple  Overloaded Keywords  Natural (NLP) User Control  Automatic Static  Dynamic (Ajax) Textual  Graphical

7. www.sharon-it.com7 Simple  Overloaded Google: Lean and Mean?

8. www.sharon-it.com8 Yahoo!

9. www.sharon-it.com9 search.Yahoo.com

10. www.sharon-it.com10 Google in 1998 – looking up at Yahoo!? Source: Internet archive’s Wayback machine www.archive.orgwww.archive.org

11. www.sharon-it.com11 Google Personalized

12. www.sharon-it.com12 Advanced

13. www.sharon-it.com13 MSN Search Builder

14. www.sharon-it.com14 Windows?

15. www.sharon-it.com15 Search Engines UI Paradigms Simple  Overloaded Keywords  Natural (NLP) User Control  Automatic Static  Dynamic (Ajax) Textual  Graphical

16. www.sharon-it.com16 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)

17. www.sharon-it.com17 Excite

18. www.sharon-it.com18 Google Suggest As you type – you get query suggestions and number of results per query. labs.google.com/suggest

19. www.sharon-it.com19 Q&A Engines (Natural Language) General SEs Q&A: –Google –Yahoo –MSN Q&A Engines: –Ask –Brainboost –Lexxe

20. www.sharon-it.com20 Google, MSN, Yahoo

21. www.sharon-it.com21 Ask

22. www.sharon-it.com22 BrainBoost

23. www.sharon-it.com23 Lexxe

24. www.sharon-it.com24 (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

25. www.sharon-it.com25 Search Engines UI Paradigms Simple  Overloaded Keywords  Natural (NLP) User Control  Automatic Static  Dynamic (Ajax) Textual  Graphical

26. www.sharon-it.com26 Meta Search Engine (MSE) MetaCrawler YahooWeb CrawlerOpen TextLycosInfoSeekInktomiGalaxyExcite Google · Yahoo · Ask About · LookSmart · Overture FindWhat

27. www.sharon-it.com27

28. www.sharon-it.com28 Vivisimo: link: Not supported?

29. www.sharon-it.com29 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?

30. www.sharon-it.com30 Query Results Examples of User Interface in Query Results’ pages : –Google –Clusty/Vivisimo –A9 –Exalead –KartOO (see Graphical)

31. www.sharon-it.com31

32. www.sharon-it.com32 Clusty

33. www.sharon-it.com33

34. www.sharon-it.com34

35. www.sharon-it.com35

36. www.sharon-it.com36 Search Engines UI Paradigms Simple  Overloaded Keywords  Natural (NLP) User Control  Automatic Static  Dynamic (Ajax) Textual  Graphical

37. www.sharon-it.com37 Ajax Asynchronous JavaScript and XML

38. www.sharon-it.com38 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)

39. www.sharon-it.com39 Example Ajax Applications Google Maps/Local (Yahoo, A9) Housing Maps Google Suggest Windows live Yahoo! Instant Search GMail And many more..

40. www.sharon-it.com40

41. www.sharon-it.com41 HousingMaps Mash-up of Google maps and Craigs list rentals Mash-up are websites that are built from pieces of other websites http://www.housingmaps.com/

42. www.sharon-it.com42

43. www.sharon-it.com43

44. www.sharon-it.com44

45. www.sharon-it.com45

46. www.sharon-it.com46

47. www.sharon-it.com47

48. www.sharon-it.com48 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.

49. www.sharon-it.com49 Yahoo! Instant Example of slow reaction Good implementation of “back” instant.search.yahoo.com

50. www.sharon-it.com50 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. http://livesearch.alltheweb.com/?ek=1

51. www.sharon-it.com51

52. www.sharon-it.com52 Search Engines UI Paradigms Simple  Overloaded Keywords  Natural (NLP) User Control  Automatic Static  Dynamic (Ajax) Textual  Graphical

53. www.sharon-it.com53 Visual/Graphical Search Engines KartOO www.kartOO.comwww.kartOO.com TouchGraph

54. www.sharon-it.com54 Kartoo Legend

55. www.sharon-it.com55 Examples 1.Query: “Taly Sharon” –Main webpage, www.sharon-it.comwww.sharon-it.com –co-authors (selker, lieberman, frank, lockerd, etc.) –Conferences (IFLA, CHI, SigGraph, etc.) –Related keywords (mostly from research/papers) –Other related: GoogleGuide.com 2.Query: www.sharon-it.com (website)www.sharon-it.com

56. 56

57. www.sharon-it.com57

58. www.sharon-it.com58

59. www.sharon-it.com59 (Dis)Advantages Advantages: –very visual, easy to detect trends. –Useful to find connections Disadvantages: –Requires training –Easy disorientation

60. www.sharon-it.com60 Demonstration Links Google www.google.comwww.google.com Yahoo www.yahoo.comwww.yahoo.com Yahoo Search Interface search.yahoo.comsearch.yahoo.com Google 1998 (from Internet Archive) http://web.archive.org/web/19981111183552/http://google.stanford.edu/ http://web.archive.org/web/19981111183552/http://google.stanford.edu/ Yahoo Advanced search.yahoo.com/web/advanced?ei=UTF-8search.yahoo.com/web/advanced?ei=UTF-8 Google Personalized www.google.com/igwww.google.com/ig MSN Search Builder search.msn.co.ilsearch.msn.co.il Excite www.excite.comwww.excite.com Google Suggest labs.google.com/suggestlabs.google.com/suggest Ask www.ask.comwww.ask.com Brainboost www.brainboost.comwww.brainboost.com Lexxe www.lexxe.comwww.lexxe.com Dogpile www.dogpile.comwww.dogpile.com Vivisimo www.vivisimo.comwww.vivisimo.com Clusty www.clusty.comwww.clusty.com A9 www.a9.comwww.a9.com Exalead www.exalead.comwww.exalead.com Google Maps maps.google.commaps.google.com Housing Maps www.housingmaps.comwww.housingmaps.com A9 maps maps.a9.commaps.a9.com Windows live www.live.comwww.live.com Yahoo Instant instant.search.yahoo.cominstant.search.yahoo.com Alltheweb Livesearch livesearch.alltheweb.com/?ek=1livesearch.alltheweb.com/?ek=1 Kartoo www.kartoo.comwww.kartoo.com

61. www.sharon-it.com61 References Ajax – wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AJAX http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AJAX http://blogs.zdnet.com/micro- markets/index.php?p=27http://blogs.zdnet.com/micro- markets/index.php?p=27 http://yhoo.client.shareholder.com/downloads/2 006AnalystDay.pdfhttp://yhoo.client.shareholder.com/downloads/2 006AnalystDay.pdf http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4900742. stmhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4900742. stm http://www.dsi.uniroma1.it/~ale//BICI/IR/Slides /bertinoro8.pdfhttp://www.dsi.uniroma1.it/~ale//BICI/IR/Slides /bertinoro8.pdf