In common usage, an image (from Latinimago) or picture is an artifact that reproduces the likeness of some subject—usually a physical object or a person.
More than a pretty face livesearch Tue, 06 May 2008 10:40:00 -0000 Along with the release of our new search experience, we'd like to give some background into the design team and process that went into all the changes you see. You might not immediately think of design as being a critical part of a search product, but we think it is, and we have a growing team of designers, researchers, and developers who believe it, too. We have a growing, pro-design community here at Microsoft as well (only fitting to plug Microsoft Design).
Simple and powerful. Human. Fast. These were our guiding principles for this latest version of Live Search.
Here's the nickel tour:
Simple and powerful is about getting just enough, having information and tools when you need them, and revealing functionality without being overwhelmed.
Being human reminds us that all good products speak to people and we should always design for them.
Being fast has particular relevance to search where so much depends on rolling up the world of information to support people's countless other activities and passions.
We wove these principles into our work on Live Search in a process that started with user research, customer feedback, and a myriad of other sources for data and learning. All disciplines got involved in sketching as a shared way to develop our ideas. With informed iteration, sketches turned into the interactions, layouts, and visual designs that fed directly into user testing, giving us a unique opportunity as designers and researchers to make truly "user-centered" decisions.
Here are some of the biggest changes you'll notice that resulted from our product design process:
Search box near results The new Live Search header and search box is slimmed down from a heavy piece of UI into sleeker, simpler elements. Bringing the search box into alignment with the results and into the body moves it closer to where users are looking and flattens out the visual bumps between it and the results.
Room to breathe on the page Something else you'll see on a large screen (lucky you!) is our centered, fixed-width page, allowing for a more thoughtful, predictable experience as richer search content and wider screens become the norm.
Crisp, clean type We've also made changes to our color and typography. Our decision to use Arial and the new color palette was based not only on our desire to improve readability and consistency, but also on rounds of testing to find the right combination.
Intuitive video search For our new video search experience, the team focused on activities and behaviors that make video search different. We focused on simplicity — cutting irrelevant pixels and text — and power — investing in enhanced preview for video — both of which contribute to the overall simple, yet powerful experience.
Health results integrated from many sources You'll see in health search that we've created a way for users to pull together health information from many different sources, digestible all in one place.
Ultimately, we think we've taken a step forward with this new product that we think will improve the overall Live Search experience. As with any design, it will evolve along with our design team, and we'll tell you more as we go. We welcome hearing your thoughts, too.
Evan Malahy, Designer, Live Search Answering your questions on QnA livesearch Thu, 01 May 2008 13:40:00 -0000 We've introduced our "Renaissance" release of Live Search QnA Beta. Our re-birth signifies the beginning of a new set of features that we'll continue to grow.
We had three goals for this release:
Focus on the QnA experience for new users.
Encourage users to discover content and functionality in new ways.
Highlight and award higher quality content by featuring members who are Top Contributors in given areas of expertise.
Find out more about what we've done at the QnA team blog. And remember to submit your own questions and answers to our Live Search QnA beta.
Heather Friedland, Lead Program Manager, Live Search QnA xRank™ Musician — better than top 40 night at the disco livesearch Thu, 01 May 2008 07:07:00 -0000 Just when you thought we'd stop at Celebrities, we now bring you (drum roll, please) Musicians!
xRankTM provides much more than just a way to track search trends — it's much more than that — it's a social commentary. With xRankTM Musicians we bring you the "mob's view" on what's shaking up the music industry.
Sure, you've got Top 40s, billboard charts, and album sales, but what's more socially relevant than what you and your peers are searching for? Ever heard of Jay-Z, the rapper? If you have, then on the scale ranging from "I live in a bubble" to "I'm in the know" you're in good shape. If you haven't, you may want to brush up on your pop culture prowess. No worries — xRankTM is here to help.
Our boy Jay-Z got married to Beyoncé recently. His search popularity soared and xRankTM caught it — can't say the same for your local station's top 40 list.
Here are some other events that illustrate the "xRankTM effect":
Unfortunate deaths — Charlton Heston passes away, RIP
Pregnancy rumors — Jessica Alba unveils her baby bump
And when they are no longer rumors — Jennifer Lopez unveils the twins
Sex tape scandals — Kim Kardashian (promoters and publicists are really milking this phenom, post-Paris)
The list goes on.
By now, you're probably bookmarking xRankTM and making it a part of your daily coffee routine. But for those of you who are unaffected by celebs and musicians and pop culture in general, we'll have some more people xRankTM features that I am really excited about. Stay tuned!
Andy Lam, Program Manager, Live Search New Product Search gives you more options livesearch Wed, 30 Apr 2008 14:20:00 -0000 With the recent update of the Product Search experience (http://search.live.com/products/), users can both research and find deals on products within Live Search. We've incorporated feedback from our users during the beta cycle and revamped the user experience, so now users can search and refine products by user opinions, brand, category, and price ranges. In addition, users can sort results by best user, expert rating, and price. Try it out, and send us your feedback!
Here are highlights of our product search experience:
One stop to research product details and find good prices You see an image and description for each product, reviews from other users, prices to help you find good deals, and spec sheets for many products.
Feature-based refinements See which products are reviewed positively or negatively for the features that interest you. View product features such as screen size, battery life, ease of use, and portability.
Sorting Sort product results by user ratings, expert ratings, and price.
Filtering Filter product results by specific brands, categories, and price ranges.
Richer product details Read expert reviews and a spec sheet describing the product.
In the example below, you can view both positive and negative feedback on the Garmin Nuvi 360 GPS receiver. You can click Ease of Use above the green bar to read actual user comments specifically about Ease of Use. This makes it really easy to parse long user reviews to find exactly what you're looking for. Learn more about summarizing user reviews in our previous post here.
Instant answers In addition to the Product Search update, we've improved Product instant answers in web search for broader product queries like GPS, digital cameras, plasma tv, where your intent is research. The instant answer provides guides (we now have a larger selection) and user and expert reviews.
Try different product searches in web search and give us your feedback by clicking Is this Useful?
Note This is a U.S. release only. We haven't yet released these features internationally.
More to come We're excited to bring you these new Product search features, and we have a lot more planned in the coming months. In the meantime, try out a few searches like gps systems, mp3 players, and cell phones, and let us know what you think by using the Feedback link!
The Live Product Search team Shop and search on the go livesearch Mon, 28 Apr 2008 15:15:00 -0000 We've just released the latest updates to our browser-based mobile search at m.live.com. One of our major efforts was to bring the power of product search to the convenience of a mobile phone. Think about how much time people spend shopping in brick-and-mortar stores — without the ability to do the product research they're accustomed to from their PCs.
We took the great product search features from Live Search and made them easy to use on your mobile phone.
You'll see a list of popular products, user ratings, and price comparisons from online stores.
You can also research products by reading a detailed overview or consumer reviews.
We even include feature ratings that are created by extracting the key elements of user reviews from across the Web.
Now the next time a consumer electronics device catches your eye in a store, you'll be able to get the detailed rundown on its performance, read the consensus wisdom of the Web, compare it with similar products, and even make sure it's being offered for a good price — all before you make that impulse buy. Now you can spend wisely, wherever you are.
Another of our favorite features this release was developed specifically for our friends abroad — those in the United Kingdom and Japan. Searching for nearby businesses is one of the most popular and most valued types of mobile search today. But most existing browser-based search services require the user to first type in their location — easy if you're always in the same place, but a chore when you're out and about, and a real challenge if you don't know exactly where you are.
With this new feature, users can simply click Find my Location, and their location will be set based on their proximity to cellular towers. Then they can get the most relevant nearby results for all their searches.
Let us know what you think! You can send feedback to lsmbfeed@microsoft.com.
The Live Search Mobile team News Search – now with RSS livesearch Thu, 24 Apr 2008 14:44:00 -0000 You wanted it, and now you have it. We've incorporated RSS feeds into the browse and search results experience. Subscribe and stay up to date with stories from all categories or for specific searches that you perform. We appreciate all the feedback that you've given us. We take it all seriously and do our best to respond.
Try us out (http://news.live.com/), and keep the feedback coming!
The News Search team xRank™ Celebrity — check out who’s hot and who’s not! livesearch Thu, 24 Apr 2008 08:40:00 -0000 Those of you who search for stuff related to celebrities in your spare time raise your hands.
C'mon now, don't be sheepish about it — we know the numbers, and we know you do it because we do it, too. Here's a thought. What if we could rank who you and all other Live Searchers like to search for?
And then there was born a child unlike its siblings, a Live Search feature whose sole purpose was to be — gasp — FUN?! Check it out here.
Here are a few of the key things I want to point out:
The xRankTM list that is based on search volume. Honest, we're not making this up... I don't even like Lil Wayne that much.
A list for what we call "Top Movers" — celebs that are making strides up the ranks.
Recent news articles on buzz-worthy celebs.
A historical xRankTM graph that tracks popularity over time (my personal fave).
Links to Images, Video, Biography, plus Albums and Movies.
Related Celebrity thumbnails that link to other xRankTM pages.
Everyone's xRankTM is updated several times a day to make sure we're up to speed. Check in often!
This is still in beta, with more improvements to come. What we have now serves its purpose, but we're all about "souping" this baby up with more features. Let us know what you think we can do to improve, especially if there is someone you think we missed.
Try it out now and lose yourself for a while.
Andy Lam, Program Manager, Live Search Going deep: diving into the site you want livesearch Tue, 22 Apr 2008 14:00:00 -0000 When we were thinking about what searches we could improve on for this release, one thing we realized was that we actually were already getting a lot of searches right. A bunch of these were searches about a particular website you wanted. We returned the website, and you went there. Good times.
But you didn't stay there. We did some research, and it turns out that after you made it to that page, you often tended to go to a few predictable places afterwards. When you searched for CBS you weren't just hanging out on the homepage, you were going off to check out the page for the Late Show with David Letterman. When you searched for King County you were often going to eventually make your way to their Trip Planner.
Since we knew that there was a lot of extra navigation going on, we figured that we should save you the extra clicks. So we did.
Enjoy!
Kemp Peterson, Program Manager, Live Search We’ve revamped News Search! livesearch Thu, 17 Apr 2008 18:25:00 -0000 With the launch of the new browse experience for News (http://news.live.com/), we now bring you the most relevant stories of the day bucketed in categories, such as top stories, local news, and business. At the same time, the news team has revamped the news results page to incorporate many new features to improve your search experience. Add us to your homepage, try it out, and give us your feedback!
To highlight some of the features of our browse experience:
Aggregated news We now pull in up-to-date news headlines for users to browse, which include top stories and category-specific articles. Breaking news is clearly identified and up to the minute when it happens, so you're always at the forefront of developing stories.
Local news Right off the bat we introduce news from your (U.S.) state.
Multimedia We incorporate a bevy of multimedia content into our pages, including images and videos with smart-motion thumbnails. Read the headlines, and watch videos all on one page!
We're trying hard to make our browse page a one-stop shop for local, national, and international news, combined with rich multimedia content.
If you click "more on this story" or type a search into the search box, you'll notice several new features on the results page:
Filtering You're now able to filter the results based on your location to get articles from a local perspective, or you can filter by the dominant categories of your search based on the results — so it's easy now to get articles from ESPN or the Seattle Post-Intelligencer for your Seattle Supersonics queries. :-)
Related searches We offer suggestions on similar topics.
Sort articles by date
Videos When they are available you get videos directly in the results. We love videos around here.
Try out a few searches, like Iraq, obama, microsoft, and let us know what you think!
More to come We're excited to jumpstart News with these new features, and we have a lot more planned in the coming months. We'll be pushing out RSS support soon, and for those who've noticed that we don't have blogs in our sources yet, rest assured — we're getting to them. Our goal is to ensure that we have as many sources as possible in our news search, and we'll continue to innovate and experiment to make sure we have the right feature set to enable that. In the meantime, have fun with our new News experience, and send feedback our way!
Update Our official URL is http://news.live.com/, but you'll soon be able to hit our news browse page from the Live Search homepage (http://www.live.com/). To get there, you'll be able to click the News tab or click the News link on any search results page with an empty query. The new features from News are currently only available to the U.S. market, but we're working on extending our coverage internationally. Until then, if you live outside the U.S. you can still check us out by clicking here.
The News Search team
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