Embr
The Search Engine for Your Fingers
The Search Engine for Your Fingers
Introduction
In this project, I have developed a new mobile search engine interface which aims to provide users a non-obstructive experience. The interface is reversible and results are displayed visually. The new search engine is developed as a web application that is compatible across different devices and different platforms.
The interface combines visual search, text search and among the best practices of many search engines. These features are put in a form that is touch screen-friendly. The new search engine interface is developed specifically for the iPhone because its browser (WebKit) is the best standard-compliance browser and also iPhone is the most popular smart phone.
In this project, I have developed a new mobile search engine interface which aims to provide users a non-obstructive experience. The interface is reversible and results are displayed visually. The new search engine is developed as a web application that is compatible across different devices and different platforms.
The interface combines visual search, text search and among the best practices of many search engines. These features are put in a form that is touch screen-friendly. The new search engine interface is developed specifically for the iPhone because its browser (WebKit) is the best standard-compliance browser and also iPhone is the most popular smart phone.
Thumbnails of webpages are displayed along with a text excerpt.
Search results are loaded dynamically and does not require users to push any button.
Typing on a touch screen may not be as comfortable as on a real keyboard. The search engine automatically suggests refined search queries for the users to minimize typing. It is implemented by swiping the screen to the right or to the left, so that the search result of related query will be shown.
Embr is a an iPhone web app that has its own icon and loading screen. In fact, it is built using HTML5, jQuery, AJAX and JSON technology that makes it very efficient and modern.
User Testing
To verify that Embr improves the usability of mobile searching, the search engine was released to a small group of people for preliminary testing.
Embr was released on an invite-only designer and developer social network “Forrst” where 47 experienced user interface designers or developers saw and used Embr. Their comments and recommendations are summarized below.
1. Using san-serif font (like Arial) would increase readability.
2. Embr should be compatible with Android platform.13
3. iPhone's status bar should be made black opaque to match overall look and feel.
4. General favorable feedback for the ability for flipping the search result card to the back, so that some details could be shown
5. General favorable feedback for the interface for swiping to display related search results.
To verify that Embr improves the usability of mobile searching, the search engine was released to a small group of people for preliminary testing.
Embr was released on an invite-only designer and developer social network “Forrst” where 47 experienced user interface designers or developers saw and used Embr. Their comments and recommendations are summarized below.
1. Using san-serif font (like Arial) would increase readability.
2. Embr should be compatible with Android platform.13
3. iPhone's status bar should be made black opaque to match overall look and feel.
4. General favorable feedback for the ability for flipping the search result card to the back, so that some details could be shown
5. General favorable feedback for the interface for swiping to display related search results.
