New SearchMonkey Enhanced Result Template Deployed (Yahoo! Developer Network Blog)

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YDN YDN Blog New SearchMonkey Enhanced Result Template Deployed

Yahoo! Developer Network Blog

September 18, 2008

New SearchMonkey Enhanced Result Template Deployed

In July, we bucket tested a new template design for Enhanced Result applications. Developers do not have to take any actions to use this new redesign; all Enhanced Result applications will upgrade automatically. Important: Infobar applications will be unaffected.

The original SearchMonkey post contains examples of both the old and the new SearchMonkey Enhanced Result templates. In this posting, we'll just show examples of the new design. First, an Enhanced Result for HowStuffWorks.com that displays a result with a full abstract:

New SearchMonkey Enhanced Result (Abstract)

The first design change you'll notice is that images appear to the right, rather than the left. Our user testing has shown that moving images to the right improves the usability of the overall result. As for links, they now appear in a horizontal row, rather than as a vertical column next to the image. Not only are the deep links are more discoverable when presented separately from the image, but moving the links into a horizontal row provides more space for the summary and key/value pairs.

Now let's take a look at another real-world example from CitySearch, this one displaying a result with key/value pairs:

Original SearchMonkey Enhanced Result (Key/Value Pair)

As in the example above, the image is shifted to the right. The key/value pairs have replaced the abstract, lying just below the deep links.

Careful observers will note that the key and value are now the same color — a minor change from the old template, where the keys were a lighter shade of grey. We found that keys were actually more discoverable when displayed in the same shade as the value.

The SearchMonkey team is confident improves performance, engagement, and discoverability across the board for users and developers. If you have feedback on the new templates, please let us know here, or leave us a comment in the SearchMonkey forum.

Evan Goer
Yahoo! SearchMonkey Team

Posted at September 18, 2008 9:50 AM | Permalink

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Comments

Hi Evan,
Just some quick feedback after exploring some things. I like that the links are on top. It seems to give the result more space allowing me to have links and not lose as much of the description. I think the bullet points are not very visually pleasing. And the photo seems a little far away. I thought the Xbox games app looked really nice but in this new format it looks kinda ugly. Actually a lot of my apps look uglier now with the bullet points

Posted by: Greg Schechter at September 18, 2008 1:12 PM

Hi Greg! In all honesty, I agree with you that the new key/value pairs are not as attractive as the old ones. However, the new keys did test better -- the users were able to read and identify the keys more often when the keys and values were both black. I wouldn't have predicted that behavior either, but there you have it...

Posted by: Evan at September 18, 2008 4:07 PM

Personally, I like the old ones better. The new template simply looks weird to me. Why not allowing both, and let the developers/publishers to choose?

Posted by: Ziru at September 19, 2008 10:10 AM

Hi Ziru -- because we need to make sure that when users are quickly scanning the search results page, that they recognize Enhanced Results as real search results and not advertisements. If we allowed two radically different Enhanced Result templates, this would only serve to lower the usability of the search results page in general.

Posted by: Evan at September 19, 2008 10:06 PM

Hi Evan -- That is why I put "personally" there, to only express my feelings. Other users may like the new templates better. I look forward to seeing more EnhanceResults monkeys in the gallery soon (still too few now). Btw, I tried to write another monkey, but the DevTool is very slow, which makes writing data/presentation monkeys very time-consuming. Hope there would be more improvements on this front too.

Posted by: Ziru at September 19, 2008 10:21 PM