Am I getting too old for this (Google instant rant)? | Hacker News Reader

Am I getting too old for this (Google instant rant)?

bureau14.fr

43 pointsshin_lao36 comments

Maybe he -is- getting old. He's already forgotten that most computer-users these days aren't the incredible touch-typists that most IT professionals are.

When people tap a single key at a time, having those instant results could means minutes of time saved when searching for something, especially if they don't really know what they are looking for.

Yes, as an IT professional, I find it useless. But I know many people who would find it a blessing.

I think this is exactly the point he is missing. I find it annoying/distracting, and disabled it after a couple of days... but I don't think it's a feature aimed at people who run their own technology blog.

Picture people who hunt and peck their search query one painstaking key at a time, and finally look up at the screen in triumph once they're done... now the search results are already waiting for them.

I think such people might be overwhelmed more than helped.

I think you've got it backwards. You have to be old or an IT professional (interested in usability) to care about people who don't type. Young people regard the inability to type fast as one of those social problems that will inevitably be solved by mortality, like racism (except they're probably right about typing.) (How could you not type fast if you've been writing your school papers in a word processor since sixth grade or earlier?)

"How could you not type fast if you've been writing your school papers in a word processor since sixth grade or earlier?"

Carpal tunnel?

Judging from some of the articles I seen on-line the answer may, in part, be plagiarism or more politely extensive copy and paste. That seems to simple of an answer though.

Actually, if you type with only two fingers you will be moving your forearm a lot, which is good. Edit: I want to elaborate on this. My brother, who's 18 years old, has never learnt how to type properly, but he is, of coures, very fast, using only two fingers. He types with great energy, but less wrist strain. The stronger arm and shoulder muscles can easily take care of the job, it is the wrist muscles that are weak.

Agreed. In fact, I'd guess that most computer folk (e.g. IT professionals) use the Google search box in Firefox (via ctrl/cmd K), and rarely if-ever visit www.google.com.

So how does it work any better than Google Suggest without also having the same drawbacks he mentions for those users?

The young thrive while the old are overwhelmed because the young are more successfully discriminating. I caught myself slowing down my typing and pausing between words to give myself more time to scan the instant results. I think that's the "old" reaction -- new technology slows you down.

I suspect the "young" reaction to Google Instant would be, "That flickery thing Google does before it shows my results? I'm supposed to read that? I don't have time for that. If I ever type that slow, just kill me, because I don't ever want to be that old."

I don't understand why anyone complains about Google Instant.

It requires one less mouseclick. If you want to pretend you're using the old Google, you can just close your eyes while you type, randomly click your mouse, then open your eyes. You will have before you the same results that original Google would have returned.

Unless you get confused by the "Instant" feedback along the way (like you somehow get distracted by shiny other searches that Google recommends, forget what you were originally searching for and get "tricked" into some new query), it shouldn't be an issue.

I don't understand how you use your mouse when using Google, other than to select a search result? Normally I just press Return.

The problem with Instant is precisely the risk of distraction. It's the same reason I don't use Suggest - and in fact, I now am forced to avoid www.google.com completely, as there is now no easy way of disabling Suggest on the web page. It used to be you could switch between Suggest and non-Suggest; now, your only choices are between Suggest and Instant.

I'm sticking with the search box in the browser.

(Actually, there is a way to disable Suggest: http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=0 ; but that's impractical except as a bookmark or home page.)

I think he's suggesting using your mouse to select a result.

I think he's suggesting clicking on the Search button, because there's no difference in mouse clicks between Google Instant and old Google if you press Enter upon entering your query.

You could disable Javascript.

1.)I agree saves me the instance of having to press enter.

2.)I usually know what im searching for and type fast enough where most suggestions are not a distraction, and barely pay attention to it.

3.)When trying to refine a search its actually very helpful, and fast, when deleting a word or suggesting an added word to add to the query... i can refine search, scan results, and know right away if results are getting better or worse.

For me its a awesome.. not so much concerned with bandwidth or cpu as author.

I suspect the proportion of people who get distracted by intermediate displays is large enough to actually be valuable to Google.

here's my problem with google instant + suggest

type "maple" into google. don't click enter yet. your eyes then wander down the results, wondering wait, what's all this "maplestory" stuff? I typed in maple. you then finally realize to click enter to only get results related to "maple", and not "maplestory"

Sure, my mind will get used to it, but I'm not really crazy about suggest being the first result. And you're not saving yourself a click or type of the enter key in that case.

It's cool to see the results pop up, but even on my new macbook pro and google chrome there is a bit of GUI lag that happens when it's refreshing, which makes my computer feel slow.

> I don't understand why anyone complains about Google Instant.

Google Instant is everything that is wrong with a poor Ajax implementation.

No back/forward history, I've lost count of how many times it kicked me out of the search text box as I was editing a query, and when I try close the tab my browser warns me that I have edited text in an un-submitted form.

It's a complete and utter mess, as far as I'm concerned. The best thing about it is that you can turn it off.

The true power of Google Search is its ability to predict and correct your query text on the fly as you type, but that feature been around forever in my browser search box.

Google Instant is just a very lame (and buggy) gimmick to compete with Bing's gimmicks. If rely on gimmicks to help you decide which software to use, so be it...

Uhm, it has history. A great implementation.

I don't get distracted by the new search results, but I do get distracted when the search bar suddenly jumps to the top of the screen.

I don't know how it reduces the number of mouse clicks, though. There was one before (selecting a result), and there is still one after.

I complain because it has changed, while I was typing, one or more of the words I typed, resulting in a loss of time, having to go back to those (now) wrong words and replacing them with the right ones.

I tend to know better than Google Instant what is the precise search term I need to use to give me the results I want, be it either because it is technical or (some other times) because it's in a not very big language.

I'm an "IT professional" and, worse, an old IT professional (closing on 40.)

I strongly disliked the idea of instant search when it launched, but to my surprise, I'm actually finding it very useful. I've been able to train myself to avoid focusing on the results pane until I get deep into my query string (3rd or 4th word.) That tends to be where I organically pause anyway, while deciding whether I should tack on another word to my long-tail queries.

By that point in the query process, the noisy and wildly-irrelevant entries have already been weeded out, and I can start focusing on the results pane. Interestingly, on several occasions recently, I've seen a promising result flicker past as I'm in the process of adding that 4th word to my query. When I'm done typing, I see that none of the results are as good as the one that flickered past when I had just 3 words in my query, so I delete the last word and voila. Result that I might not have found without instant search.

I'm still not crazy about some of the larger implications (pushing most users towards the same query strings, etc.) but am finding it surprisingly useful on a personal level.

FWIW, YMMV, etc...

I'm constantly make WRONG searches now with Google Instant. Based on habit, I type my searches quickly and hit enter. However, with Instant, the Auto Complete isn't able to catch up and I end up selecting an outdated incorrect SUGGESTED query instead of my ACTUAL search query.

Google Instant actually slows me down since I have to wait for the Auto Complete to catch up.

Yup. I turned it off on all my machines.

Or is Google Instant just too nerdy?

Isn't it really not nerdy enough? The auto-suggestions steer you towards common search terms and editing your query for instant results is really only practical on short imprecise searches. It seems to be a feature that exists for people who aren't very good at searching.

"Visual feedback gives you the illusion of speed, like a progress bar reduces the impression of waiting, but that’s all it is: an illusion."

I read an article once about elevators ( http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/04/21/080421fa_fact_... ). It was spun-off the "man getting stuck in an elevator for 41 hours" story.

In the article, the writer cites a particular anecdote about an elevator company installing faster elevators in a particular building. Patrons of the building, however, complained that the elevators were now slower. The company was confused--how was this possible? It turns out, the new elevators lacked mirrors. People couldn't straighten their hair and pick their teeth while standing in it, so the ride felt longer.

People perceive time in odd ways. Google's taking a stab at this perception; the illusion of speed in the eyes of the user counts more than physical speed. The user is the yard stick, not engineers with stopwatches.

The author here casts aside illusion like it's meaningless, but that's far from the truth. Look at the Parthenon, whose columns are tapered to make it look bigger, or magicians, who stun audiences with clever distraction. Casting aside illusion is on par with casting aside mathematics; it may be difficult to understand at times and require a large amount of labor to learn, but neither can be avoided without losing some room to maneuver.

Agreed. The illusion of speed gets you some of the benefits of actual speed, user satisfaction in particular.

Google instant is really useful for the unsophisticated users typing URLs into the search box instead of the address bar.

With Google instant, type the letter "f", you'll get Facebook.com as the first link because that many people are searching for it on Google. For almost every letter of the alphabet the first instant search term is a domain name.

I don't like this new thing. It is not similar to the old thing, which I do like!

And on the other hand, not all shiny new things are an improvement on the old. For a company as allegedly fearful of opportunity cost as Google[1], we should expect that well over 90% of the new stuff they do sucks more than their old stuff.

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10895

I actually don't have plus or minus feeling about Google Instant. I usually typed pretty fast and the instant result won't come up before I finish typing. Also I often use the browser's quick search on the address bar, which bypasses Instant completely.

Not completely...you still land on the results page.

hah, I'm trying to turn it off but finding it is impossible. I save my preferences but it's still there.

As Alex says in Clockwork Orange, "Me Glazzies! I can't close me glazzies!"

Yes, Google stores this preference in Cookies (which is wierd). So if your browser clears cookies on exit, 'instant' is again enabled by default.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com