I immediately thought in profiles as a nice extra feature when I saw this. And I even thought that it can be done automatically based on your search query without the need for profiles, I think it would be difficult to implement though.
Thanking for voting up the profile idea! It is a good one. Do you have any example searches? That would be helpful for me thinking about this. What searches would you want to see more of something else, that Google isn't already doing a good job of?
I could code things where if something shows up in Google results, it triggers another column of content from a specific source. Just need some more examples of what people are looking for.
- Searching for travels: I might want TripAdvisor (things to do and top restaurant pages), Youtube, Images, Skyscanner, Maps, Booking, Airbnb. Ideally, I would want some blogs with places to visit and things to do, but I understand there is no single good source for this (as far as I know).
- Searching for restaurants: I might want TripAdvisor, Images, Maps, The Fork.
- Searching for tech in general: StackOverflow, HN, Youtube, TechCrunch, Medium, IndieHackers.
- Searching for learning: Udemy, Coursera, FreeCodeCamp, Youtube, Google Scholar
In the examples above, I just mentioned some examples that could be useful to me, the key thing (as I mentioned it in another comment) is to be able to customize these columns, both in source (add/remove) and order, plus the width of these columns. I'm sure there are a lot of people out there with a lot of awesome ideas for profiles.
I really think this could be a great search engine experience.
What a positive surprise, I wasn't expecting something like this tbh. The UX is amazing.
I will use it for sure with some additional and essentials features for me at least:
- Ability to add and remove some columns: I have no interest in using Instagram or Twitter in my search results and I have interest in using Stackoverflow or HN for example.
- Ability to customize the width of each column for desktop: I have read in your about us page that you clearly state that “Mobile is primary”, however I would be interested in using it on my desktop on a daily basis and it would be nice to have the google column wider than the others for example.
- Possibility to customize the order of the columns: I think this is an obvious one.
Do you have any of these changes in mind for the future?
:) happy it was a good surprise! Thank you for the nice words.
Ok just added option to disable Instagram and Twitter from ▼ menu on the right of the search input. Let me know if that works good for you! Stackoverflow is there right now. Not sure how best to trigger HN, let me know if you have any suggestions on that. Probably not good to show it all the time.
I did test the Google column wider for a couple of weeks, but ended up changing it the same as the other columns. Design wise it came out that consistency was a lot more valuable for UX. Let me know after you use it for a while and get use to things, I will reconsider adding this if it still would help you!
On ordering, you mean manually? Right now I am trying to do that all automatically without thinking or manual settings, and trying to optimize for relevancy. Let me know more about your problems or ideas here.
For changes, right now based on all the feedback, seems like I should consider more sources, sort options, and dark mode?
Nice! much better now without Instagram and Twitter (at least for me), good job!
I'm going to give the Google results column with the same width a try, maybe you are right. I think it also depends on the specific user’s screen size. In any case, I would recommend you let each user decide the width of the columns.
About ordering, yes, I was referring to manually, but I hadn’t thought in automatically mode tbh, but based on relevance it is probably best as you mention now that I think twice about it. I don’t know how easy or hard is to implement this feature the right way though, it may even depend on each user specific search habits, but it just a thought.
And regarding changes, yes, those would be the must-have, highest priority, and most valuable features you can add imo.
I immediately thought in profiles as a nice extra feature when I saw this. And I even thought that it can be done automatically based on your search query without the need for profiles, I think it would be difficult to implement though.
Maybe is the future of searching, who knows!