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Google Tests a New Interface

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31 pointsGarbage24 comments

I don't think that the new design 'emphasises' the search button at all. It slots it neatly onto the end of the search bar rather than hanging it below the bar. It's smaller and more pleasing to the eye.

But I'm all for removing the 'I'm feeling lucky' button. Did anyone ever use that?

Since Instant, it had become really useless. As soon as you start typing it disappears.

> But I'm all for removing the 'I'm feeling lucky' button. Did anyone ever use that?

I don't use the homepage, but I do have a custom search set up in my browser for "I'm Feeling Lucky". It's useful when:

a) I'm reasonably sure what result will come first. For instance, if I want information about a movie I'll type `l imdb tron legacy` (l being the Feeling Lucky search prefix).

b) I want to visit company's website, but I'm not sure of their real domain. I hate landing on domain spam so if I think the company is popular enough to get the first result I'll use Lucky. Example: If I wasn't a user a Dropbox and wasn't sure they had 'dropbox.com' (and they didn't at first, getdropbox.com was the original domain) I would do `l dropbox`.

Also worth mentioning for my specific case is the fact that I don't like Instant or Suggestions and keep them disabled.

I do sometimes, if there's a site or a page that I've been to before, but can't remember the URL, but know that, for my search term, it will be the first result. A quick "tab, tab, space" takes me to that top result, nice and easily.

I use feeling lucky frequently with custom searches in the adressbar, especially for searching wikipedia and jumping to the first article.

Since we are on the topic of google search, let me nominate google instant for the worst piece of UI implementation ever.

I'm curious why you think that. I find Google Instant useful sometimes but more often irritating. It's jarring the way it insists on popping up at you. More interestingly, I find I'm acutely aware of all its tiny lags, the way it slows down and breaks up the simple experience of using a web browser. That's interesting because its speed is, in absolute terms, incredible; an engineering triumph by any standard. And yet all I notice are the ways in which it isn't instant.

I find it very irritating for precisely the same reasons. The general instability caused by the momentary screen freeze and the breakage of back button(when all the hacks don't work) is extremely annoying. I was literally banging my head against my desk yesterday until I finally found a way to disable it for the duration of the session(no way to disable it forever).

Really for me it is trying to solve a problem I never had. I am not outrightly against making things even better than they are - but in my view, the solution has to be better without debate. The fact that there is a very proactive debate against Google Instant tells me it is far from being the finest piece of work by Google. Considering search is the heart of google, Google Instant should not have been pushed down our throats. It is at best something that should have spent a few months in Google Labs.

What browser are you seeing this instability on?

You can disable Google Instant in your search preferences: http://www.google.com/preferences

I find it really irritating for query refinement. Often I will do a broad search and notice a new term in the result snippets that I want to use in my search. When the term is a name or some other hard to spell word (or phrase), I like to be able to type it in the search box while I'm looking at it in the results. Instant ruins that for me, so I always turn it off.

What are the problems you are having with it? After the change to Instant I didn't perceive any change, i.e. I didn't encounter any problems.

It gives me nausea. Anyway, it's not that helpful, either. I don't want to be distracted by "A", "Ar", "Arc*" etc. results when I search for "Archaeology" , because, supposedly, I know what I'm searching for.

Here's what one of the designers of Instant thinks about the UX (they tested it): http://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/1416/is-google-instant...

I'd appreciate a way to get back to the last 'view'. Very often I type what I want to type, but while I type Google instant loads the search results. I read them with at a single glance and find something that interests me...however my fingers kept typing and before I can click on the link that got my attention, Google loads the view that is pertinent to the stuff I typed in, and now I don't know how to get back, because I was looking at the instant search results.

Besides the obvious hyperbole (I guarantee you've made something worse in the UI department), Instant's been a massive hit. I'm sorry that you don't enjoy it, but there's always a sub-set of users that will resist any change whatsoever, even if it's a massive improvement.

You can turn it off in search settings. (Under the gear.)

While they're at it why even have a search button, remove it altogether! No sarcasm, we don't really need it.

Have some backup for those people where instant doesn't work and they look for a button instead of hitting enter. Maybe mouse movements after typing a search term makes the button appear.

That wouldn't work for mobile, keeping a button there is best, it works in more usage scenarios.

Actually quite often for me, the instant search fails to load, and I'm glad the search button is still there to let me refresh the results...

The prominent search button is excellent. My grandma would go banana's if it disappeared.

type in "gay", press enter and look at the search button ..

Cool. :)

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