Last month Avvo launched our first major design overhaul of the site.  Looks like we were so successful, Google has followed our example.

Google launched a new UI today aimed at bringing much of their latest search functionality to the masses. The layout of the search results pages has been refined and (gasp!) the Google logo received a polishing.  But the major update is providing one-click filtering functionality based on a user’s intent.  In plain English?  Let’s say I search for “iPhone” – the previous (and new default) result is a mix of all sorts of information around the iPhone.  Search engines have trouble understanding the user’s intent – do I want late breaking news about the iPhone, do I want to buy an iPhone, do I want to see a video of an iPhone, do I want to read blog reviews about the iPhone? So Google has added simple one-click filtering icons to help users further refine their results:  Shopping, News, Blogs, etc.  There is also additional functionality to limit results by date and even geography.

These changes are a result of traffic pattern analysis that suggests people are constantly refining their searches through the search box – essentially running 2, 3 or even 5 searches to find the content they want.  This pattern is obviously a poor user experience – by providing one click filtering based on the user’s intent, Google can funnel people to the content they want more efficiently. Interestingly, reviews (as in client reviews on Avvo, for example) didn’t make the cut (although has Google tested this extensively in the past.)

For an in-depth review (and screenshots) check out Meet The New Google at Search Engine Land.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 5th, 2010 at 9:24 am by Conrad Saam, Marketing and is filed under Conrad Saam Posts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.