Trends in Search Engines UIs

A search engine is not only evaluated through the results it returns to queries but also by its user interface, the options and the customizations it allows. In this post, I try to compare a few search engines that have recently emerged and identify UI or functional trends.

The Search Input
The minimalists
The minimalists search engine are characterised by a spartan UI: no options, no preferences. It seems to be the trend those days.
In this class, you have:

• Hakia:
• Chacha:
• SearchMash: (Look mummy no search button!)
• Retrevo:

You are left alone with your thoughts...

The directories
The directories are characterized in that they propose several search domains/collections and that you can choose what to search. Most of them do that through pseudo-tabs or checkboxes (here again the Google experience):

• Live Search:


• Clusty:


• Quintura:


• Rollyo: (Here you can customize the buttons that should appear)

The Specials
Only two search engines have special features for entering queries. Swicki, that allows to build customized search engines for your site, allows to add a tag map to the search box showing hot searches.

Snap is the only one to propose suggestions as you type (like Google Suggest)


Clearly, the mood set by Google eight years ago has won.

Advanced Search

Very few search engines have advanced search options. I assume those companies believe most users won't find advanced search useful so why bother.

Google has a lot of advanced search features and will be preferred by experienced searchers.

Live Search has equivalent features and present them in a more modern pop-up based interface.


Most interesting is the ability to influence the ranking of results. Live Search is the only engine to have this feature.


Clusty also has a few advanced search controls:

Preferences
Again, only Google, Live Search and Clusty allow to set preferences.

Google:

Live Search:

Clusty:

Search Results

Most search results contain very little information and not all the snippets are useful. For example:

• Chacha:
• LiveSearch: (this is not a good snippet)
• Retrevo:

The only search results that have something special are:

• Clusty that returns a long definition for wikipedia with an image:
• Snap and Retrevo show the result page in a separate frame:


• Most interesting Swicki allows to recommend results to other users:
  Recall that Swicki is used to define community search engines in which recommendations and comments make sense.

Special Features

In this section I show what are the special features proposed by each search engine:

A few engines proposes terms to precise the query:

• Chacha has a menu of Related Searches:
  
• Quintura has interactive map of related terms:


• Retrevo has a menu to target results:
  

A few engines show results from other areas beside the main results list:

• Rollyo has results coming from different sources:
  
• Same for SearchMash:
  

Again Swicki has the particularity to allow leaving comments related to a particular search or ask for help:

Conclusion

While there is so much UI inventivity in the global Web2.0 community, I am surprised there are so few UI features in the new search engines: looks like Google has defined an experience and everybody else aligns. Only Live Search and Clusty offer a level of customization comparable to Google for advanced users and only Live Search has a modern look and feel. All the others concentrate on a technological niche defined by one and only particular feature whether it is page previews or a particular ranking technology. The social aspects proposed by Swicki looks like the most promising to me, at least for search engines with a definite small audience.

For the general internet audience, I don't see any of the new search engines competing with Google or Live Search in the near future. They definitely lack some Wow factor. The only one that is amusing is Chacha Guide Search I reviewed a few days ago. For specialized/community search engines, Swicki is the one I will follow (you can test the Swicki I created on the sidebar).