Yahoo recently improved their web search to by adding related terms and other possible searches in a directory-esque structure for general searches. The change means that general searches bring up the other concepts. This is an interesting and useful change because it will likely help people improve their searches and their search abilities by teaching people how the search works (at least in terms of the words-concepts and general hierarchy) and how to think of their terms/topics in order to get the best results.
I’m hoping this will be a great way for people to learn how to better search by searching. Because the learning aspect is embedded and helpful, and requires no additional effort, this should be really useful and really well used by many. This is also a great example of an interface being more complex and less complicated at the same time. This is elegant design because it embeds the additional material after the search instead of requiring users to see or use new information until after it benefits them.
2007-10-15