[Sigia-l] "Universal Search"

[Ziya Oz]

Some years ago, I was negotiating for a project and the soft spot the client
was hesitant about was the retrieval mechanism for various types of content
they had in abundance. They had already tried (with internal and external
teams) different methods of what amounted to complicated navigation schemes,
which, surprise, I don't much like. :-)

I quickly prototyped a different approached and they loved it. But one VP
(who was extremely risk averse) wanted "validation" that not only this would
work but that some other "credible" company was already using it with
"success."

Mind you, this was at a time when examples of a single, simple
searchbox-like interface generating resultsets containing varied content
from different silos in a federated way were not in abundance.

Thankfully, Google had just started experimenting such an approach with its
searchbox and I was happy to show that for "validation." It worked and I
secured the contract, thus remaining in gratitude of the $150 billion
company ever since. :-)

Another thing I've done ever since has been to complain about the poor
visual and architectural presentation of Google resultsets. (I consider it
shameful, but that's another thread. :-)

Anyhow, Google has decided to consolidate its content silos as 'universal
search':

<http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/05/universal-search-best-answer-is-stil
l.html>

<http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/05/behind-scenes-with-universal-search.
html>

Are you happy with the results?

----
Ziya

In design, interaction is the last resort.