Is it just eye candy for search?

A colleague sent me a link to the beta version of Searchme's visual search site. I'm pretty impressed (and admittedly it's initially because of the iTunes-style eye candy). It definitely slows down your ability to rifle through search results, but we've learned to specify our search terms by now, right? From what I've gathered through the usability grapevine, users don't go beyond the first page of results.



Upon further use, I've noticed the results which come back aren't as wide as Google's and the keyword filtering seems a little too accurate. For example, using natural language and typing in "how to use a lucky lura at balboa pier" returns no results, but typing in "lucky lura balboa pier" is fine. I think most people probably make use of the latter, but even typing in "lucky lura at balboa pier" doesn't return any results and the only difference is the addition of the word "at". (Maybe I'm using terms which are too obscure, but isn't that what search is for? Ideally you'd want to find exactly what you're looking for, but that's not here yet--for now you just need that scent trail.)

I'd also like to see the results summary for each specific page up front without having to hover over the title at the bottom.

The navigation is simple (click on a site on either side of the main result) or use the slider at the bottom. At the top are filters to narrow your search, a little switch at the bottom allows you to view text and visual results simultaneously, and your keywords are highlighted within the site thumbnail. Dynamic results are also great (why aren't more companies doing this with their data?? Don't force me to go through page reloads!)

Visual search isn't entirely new, but this is the first I've seen that actually communicates results to me in a way that I can understand. Gotta watch this one...

Monetizing headlines

Is this an April Fool's joke that someone forgot to remove? Akin to the "Area Man" t-shirts sold by The Onion, CNN now apparently sells t-shirts based on their headlines. At this point it looks like they're pulled from stories with entertainment value. I'm not sure what to think... it's certainly an interesting move.



A couple other reports...

• http://gawker.com/382150/make-your-own-cnn-t+shirts
• http://www.buzzfeed.com/buzz/CNN_T-Shirts
  

Usability at IGN

I was immediately back in the air after the IA Summit and on my way to San Francisco. It was tiring but I was looking forward to participating in IGN's very first usability test. We would be testing out our brand new video player.

It was a little hectic and wasn't as smooth as I would've liked it to be, but with only a week and a half to prepare and recruit we tried to make the best out of it. Here are some issues we ran into:

• The tasks we came up with were last minute and aligning them with what product wanted wasn't as tight as it could've been. We tried to remedy this by simply adjusting tasks as we went along.


• We started out with a drawing exercise to see if the user could draw or write out their experiences of watching a video. Most kinda fumbled around with this and couldn't quite remember certain features. So the second day we switched to simply getting comments on other popular video sites such as YouTube, CNN, and Gametrailers and found users were able to provide much more general feedback.


• Be prepared--we seemed to be searching for pens, papers, webex wasn't connected, compensation wasn't ready, etc. Next time we'll be prepared!


• I wasn't so sure about having team members (PM, Dev, etc.) in the room with us during sessions. I felt this would distract the user, but we wanted to expose them to usability. We'll probably setup a remote viewing room (Note: we should leverage our video team!)

There were a couple other things but it was mostly administrative stuff that we could've avoided. But all in all I feel we came away with a positive experience--exposing our team to usability, working out some bugs in our process, and coming away with some action items to make improvements to the product.

Welcome to IGN!


The video team out for lunch.


Makeshift usability lab.

Being in an early developmental stage

Dictionary.com defines "budding" as "Being in an early developmental stage."

Even though I've worked as an Interface Designer and Information Architect for a little over 8 years now, I feel my knowledge of user experience (UX) doesn't span so long. I just recently started at a new company and I've come to realize how woefully stagnant I've become from doing the same thing over and over again.

Here are the requirements, churn out some wireframes. Next project.

But I was rejuvenated from attending the IA Summit 2008, inspired by presentations from Luke Wroblewski, Leah Buley, and Dan Brown. I was encouraged personally by Christina Wodtke who went out of her way to invite me into her fold and then asked me to do the same for others, and by Peter Van Dijck who spent time with me discussing online communities and shared advice on following through with some ideas I've had in my head.

So here I set out to grow in knowledge, fill up my toolbox, and, in turn, to encourage and share with others. Budding UX seems an appropriate title.