Google has recently updated it’s search page and introduced the concept of Search Options.
This new feature can be accessed by performing a search on Google and then by clicking on the ‘Show Options…’ link, that can be found under the Google logo on the left-hand side of the results pages.
By clicking on this option the user is then presented with a panel of options that appear down the left-hand side of the results page and allows users to filter the search results returned to just show results from videos, forums or reviews and also by age.
Following the release of this new feature Google has now posted, on it’s official blog, the thought process that has gone into designing, what appears to be a very logical and simple design.
The blog post goes into detail about the steps and consideration taken when constructing the new page design and these processes range from analysing eye-tracking and conducting usability studies to find which of the initial designs worked best.
Also endless adjustments were made to the best of the designs after taking the user feedback on board, which changed everything from the order of the options to the location of the panel, to see which worked best.
Here are images of the initial concepts and various iterations that were considered during, what appeared to be a very long and complicated design process:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/05/behind-scenes-of-search-options-panel.html
After the final design was constructed and launched, further evaluation was conducted to highlight the most popular option and Google will continue to track user interaction to see if any further improvements can be made to further increase user satisfaction.
This shows that what Google makes appear very simple is not actually that simple after all.
