Cool AND Functional
Microsoft is doing some pretty innovative stuff with the
search engine on the Live site. Today I stumbled on the new image search
results page and was pretty amazed with what they've done. Check this
out:
http://search.live.com/#q=chicago%20skyline&scope=images&lod=2&page=results
The roll-over
effect makes the page much more usable than the traditional image search
results page. Compare the Live page to
the same search done on Google:
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=chicago%20skyline&btnG=Google+Search&sa=N&tab=gi
By burying all of
the metadata behind the roll-over effect, the Live page is able to show significantly
more images in the same number of pixels.
In addition, the Live page scales WAY better as you resize the
browser. With Google, I get rows of 4
images no matter what size I make the browser.
The Live page adjusts the number of images on each row as I make the
browser window larger/smaller.
Also note the slider
control at the top of the Live page. It allows
you to dynamically resize the images and updates the page without refreshing.
Last but FAR from
least, note the scrolling behavior. As
you move down on the Live page, more images simply appear. No more concept of “Results 1 -
20 of about 12,700” which
I’ve always thought was confusing.
Overall, it is a
markedly better user experience for viewing the results of the search.
Oh yea, give it a
try in Firefox…you’ll like what you see.