08 September 2006

Google nervously testing a new display?

Google's search results page is famous. The clean and uncluttered page is iconic. It might change. For months for Google has been carefully testing an alternative.

Searchers in Google's test group are those with the "magic cookie". The cookie is a packet of data which is delivered to a small and random sample of Google users. When one of these searchers hits the search button on Google's familiar home page they may well see the search engine's test GUI.

A gooey Google? The GUI, or Graphical User Interface, is the means by which information and options are shown to the user by a computer system. Google's GUI has been as successful as it has because of its simplicity. Google's white home page with simple search box appeared at a time when portals were cluttered with a hundreds of links, buttons, banners and options. When Google introduced pay-per-click results to their search result pages these additions were clearly set apart from the organic search results. The GUI was not just easy to use; Google's GUI also engendered trust.















It is not surprising that Google is being very careful about changing this successful combination. The truism remains: If it's not broken, why fix it? Google has much to loose with a wrong decision here. Google has not always been able to please everyone and the interface the search engine selected for Google Groups was considered a poor choice by many.















Screen shots of this particular GUI test are not rare on the web. As Google trials the proposed results page on different test groups the search engine allows more people see the proposed GUI. Although allowing users to see the test interface also encourages screen grabs of the interface to spread around the web, Google benefits from letting more people experience the proposed new GUI. Google monitors the actions and behaviour of the test groups carefully. Google has additional services to promote and the search engine want searchers to become users of Google Groups, Google News, Google Books and the new Google Video. Google wants to see more people clicking through from the search results through to Google Video, for example, and also for searchers to explore Google Video without less people clicking on the revenue generating sponsored links on the right.

The new GUI moves Google's additional services from the top of the page to the left of page. The blue bars, reminiscent of Google's PageRank bar, illustrate the number of possible results which may interest the searcher elsewhere in Google. One likely goal of the GUI is to encourage Google's searchers to become familiar with using the side of the page for navigation. If users are happy to click on the left of the organic search results then more searchers may become happy to click on the right of the search results too.

The bottom of the search results page highlights this. At the bottom of the current Google GUI users can click through to the next page of Google results. If this proposed new GUI becomes the standard then searchers are reminded of other types of search as well as the next page of search results.















As Google broadens its horizons and develops more products the search engine will face the GUI challenge again and again. How can you maintain a sleek and minimalist design whilst promoting a far from minimalist collection of services? We're likely to see more GUI tests from Google in the future.

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