Google plans search interface overhaul

Danny Sullivan reports this week that Google has announced a new interface overhaul designed to make it easier for users to find information they need by providing related links and other facets such as length for a video search. These can help users narrow the search to find the items they want, but as I wrote in a blog post on DaniWeb called "Is Google Feeling Heat From Microsoft," it's hard not to see Bing's influence on this interface redesign.

Regardless, Sullivan reports that for Marissa Mayer, who is Google’s vice president of search product and user experience, the search engine experience had grown too inconsistent. She referred to it as "search engine jazz" because you don't know what's going to happen next. The new interface design is supposed to bring more consistency to the user experience.

The new design includes a series of content filters on the left side of the screen that let you narrow your search from the default "Everything" to just images or just video, for instance. You can filter this further by choosing one of the facets that Google has now surfaced in the new design.

As I wrote in my DaniWeb post, these should be helpful, and consistency is never a bad thing, but when I search, I generally just look for a term, and in most cases, I find what I need in the first couple of results. The extra stuff is certainly nice to have, and I'm not complaining, but I never really used it before when it was inconsistently presented, and I'm not sure that I will now. The beauty of Google to me is that it usually gives me what I need without a lot of adjustments.

For more information:
- see Danny Sullivan's Search Engine Land blog post

Related Articles:
Bing increases market share in October, but pulls from Yahoo!
Bing and Google announce Twitter Search
Daniel Tunkelang leaving Endeca for Google
Should Google emphasize faceted search more?