Tag Archives: Design

Search Engine Wars

Posted by Tom Schultz on November 24, 2010 None comments

Search Engine

We use search engines every day, some times whether we know it or not. Ask anyone what search engines they know and Google.com will most likely be at the top of the list along with Yahoo.com and now Bing.com.

These companies make a lot of money and employ a lot of people these days(GOOG, YHOO, MSFT). They have been the kings of their hill for a while now. They have been unchallenged and some undefeated. It might be time for things to change.

Lately a lot of little search engines have been popping up, blekko.com and duckduckgo.com in this case.  I think these search engines have the same spirit that Google had when it was first starting out. Google just wanted to be a little bit better than it’s competition and when they were rejected they set off on their own. Providing users with search results that were slightly more accurate than their competition was enough to earn them the spot they’re in today.

So the question is, “How long until they are dethroned”?

That time might not be so distant in the future.

Blekko and DuckDuckGo Merge!

http://www.skrenta.com/2010/11/blekko_partners_with_duckduckg.html

These two search engines each provide some simple to use and unique features that can help users find the information that they’re looking for.

So I’m pleased to announce blekko’s first search partnership, with fellow search startupDuckDuckGo. When DuckDuckGo users search on a term which matches one of blekko’s seven auto-fired slashtag categories, DuckDuckGo users will see results from blekko. (The seven auto-fired slashtag categories are health, colleges, autos, personal finance, lyrics, recipesand hotels.

So now you can use some of blekko’s “slashtags”!

As part of this partnership Blekko users will have access to DuckDuckGo’s “Zero-Click Info” on a site-by-site basis. Zero-Click Info helps users find the most relevant information on sites and search terms without having to click on search results.

And you can use DuckDuckGo’s “Zero-Click Info” solutions!

Google has been releasing features a lot lately and it’s funny because it seems like they’ve been just throwing stuff against the wall and seeing what sticks. If this is true then Google is in a whole lot of trouble. Because these smaller search engine companies have much less over-head and seem to care much more about their users.

I don’t think there’s been enough competition in the search engine market and I’m very glad to see duckduckgo.com and blekko.com joining forces.

Newegg.com design refresh critique

Posted by Tom Schultz on March 26, 2010 None comments

Newegg.com has been pretty much my exclusive site to purchase computer hardware for the last 4-5 years. Recently Newegg.com has refreshed their website design. First, I would like to say that there are some key points that I really like about the refresh.

The good stuff…

I want to be positive at first here, while there are some glaring mistakes I would like to focus on the good parts.

The first thing I noticed, and I mean the first, was the text for the prices (reference #5) in the list of products that you’re browsing. This I really like a lot. It’s cleaner and easier to read. Which I think is why I noticed it first, along with people always want to view the prices of the products they’re interested in. Bravo!

Another thing I noticed, probably the second thing was that the “Compare” section had changed (reference #4). This is very nice now as well. I can see and remove the products I want to compare from this point and they carry over to the next page of products.  Very cool in my opinion. The compare page itself was cleaned up a little as well.

The page turner is kind of middle ground (reference #3). I like it but I guess it didn’t really change enough for me to think it’s stellar like the previous two features. One thing that did change drastically with that work flow is the “Loading…” message you get when turning pages.  I’m kind of indifferent about that as well.

Newegg.com Critique

Ok, now for the critique part…

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World Usability Day @ Michigan State University

Posted by Tom Schultz on November 13, 2009 2 comments

Today is World Usability Day, and I am at Michigan State University which is hosting conferences.   I’m here with Davin Granroth, and he’s showing me some of the ropes on usability.  So far today I’ve seen exactly how hard it is for visually impaired people to use the web. So many websites are made so poorly(even 508 aside) that screen readers really have a hard time making any sense of the data that’s on there.  Think of some sites that you thought were really terrible to look at(*cough*myspace*cough*) and then think about writing software that can read those out loud for people that cannot see…good luck!

So you might be wondering, “Is there ANY good news??”

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OS Critique: Mac

Posted by Eric Shull on January 28, 2009 2 comments

We visited Best Buy last night to check out Macs and netbooks. MacBooks are sleek, though that can be taken multiple ways. For some it means smooth and pretty. For others it means slippery. As more and more people adopt Macs, it makes sense to take a look at the ups and downs of their OS and interface. A lot of people are enamored with the Cupertino Kid, though a friend of mine remarked that a computer whiz he knows has become “measurably dumber” since becoming a Mac user. Let’s take a look at what the virtues and vices of a Mac.

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I’m Here Because Someone Lacks Discretion

Posted by Eric Shull on January 26, 2009 None comments

Well, Tom has suckered me into joining the blog. I tried blogging once, but it’s hard to keep the momentum going when you’re posting about offshoot/hybrid philosophy. Fortunately, this time it’s up to Tom to keep the momentum going. I’ll probably be posting about operating systems, Python, and because I first learned to program on a Commodore 64, I’ll probably be looking for old (really old) computers still active in the wild. For instance, I know of at least one water treatment plant that monitors arsenic levels with an Atari.
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