I like how it breaks down into categories, eg. 'django' gives the person, web (py framework), etc, but don't like the large fonts, need to scroll down quite a bit to see all results.
Ask YC: What do you think of my new search engine?
31–40 of 144 posts
Re: Ask YC: What do you think of my new search engine?
#32Cool (i like the fact that when i searched for duckduckgo the first result was "awesome search engine"). I also searched for google (and it gave me cool results such as it's use as a verb). It worked for technical questions such as NullPointerException and sigsegv so overall it's very cool.Congrats! [Perhaps building an add-on for word and office suites would be great for this type of search engine, i would like it(because of things like what i got out of the google query]
Re: Ask YC: What do you think of my new search engine?
#33very impressed, tried a variety of search terms and got not only what I was expecting but also other hits that were keyword equivalent. ok fair enough it's a little less responsive than google ;o) but I'm guessing you don't have a spare $50 billion to play with! (jk - the speed is fine btw). The thing that needs most attention (imho) is the design, whilst there are good things (the layout of the search results, especially of 'wide' keywords like 'ruby' or 'augustus') I'm less of a fan of the use of red - in design terms red is an emotive, passionate colour, I would recommend perhaps a blue which usually represents safety, security and trust (look at bank colour schemes). You might alos consider green or grey. The red sets me on edge. Love the use of larger fonts sizes, excellent - should be popular with the age > 25 crowd.
All in all very impressed, I wish you the very best of luck and have bookmarked and will continue to use. (Remember to keep Hacker News updated with any new developments!).
Re: Ask YC: What do you think of my new search engine?
#34I was very impressed with the results I got for some queries. The images were spot on. The first results were indeed official sites. I liked the fact that I see web results, images, news in one page.
Cons (sorry!): 1. I disliked the name 2. The design was bad. Huge textbox, ugly duck, everything seems scattered around 3. I think I liked the ajaxy interface and the more links, however I would have liked more results in every category (images, news etc) before I had to press "more"
Overall excellent work.
Re: Ask YC: What do you think of my new search engine?
#35Pretty impressive results for the terms I searched for. Unfortunately, the design made me temporarily go blind. In all seriousness, the name is pretty horrible and I "feel" as if I am using a website, not a tool. Google feels like a tool - I get in an out quickly, it doesn't invade my flow. Your application (and others, like Mahalo) are so visually invasive I would never use them, no matter the results that we return…
I disagree, I think it has the quirkiness, the edge to actually make people use it. I also don't find it visually invasive.
Re: Ask YC: What do you think of my new search engine?
#36This looks like BOSS.
Re: Ask YC: What do you think of my new search engine?
#37Don't forget the very useful "search within results" function.
Re: Ask YC: What do you think of my new search engine?
#38Pretty impressive results for the terms I searched for. Unfortunately, the design made me temporarily go blind. In all seriousness, the name is pretty horrible and I "feel" as if I am using a website, not a tool. Google feels like a tool - I get in an out quickly, it doesn't invade my flow. Your application (and others, like Mahalo) are so visually invasive I would never use them, no matter the results that we return…
Thanks for the feedback. I would very much like it to be a "tool" as you describe. I've gone through many design iterations, and have tried to keep the "clutter" down to a minimum. I would be interested to know what specific design elements you think are contributing to this problem. I know you said it isn't really a design problem, but there has to be more to say about it :) Colors? The results on the right?
The huge font size is reminiscent of text intended for small children, which combined with the colorful logo makes the site look childish in my eyes. It's furthermore bigger than most text on the web, which makes it paradoxically harder to read for me. Flashy stuff tends to catch the attention of young people, but it tends to be tiring past a certain age (I'm 29). It also reduces information density, but this may be intentional.
That said, the results are very good, the classification by topic well done, and the small descriptions are a good alternative to the usual SERP extracts. I had troubles with queries typed in French (It turned mostly results in English), but I assume you're focusing on the English language at the moment.
Besides, the layout is clean and unobtrusive. I agree with axod and aroxwell regarding caching (one "batch" of results ahead should be enough)and pagination, and with ambulatorybird regarding the length and lack of fluidity of the name. At least one these characteristics should be dropped.
Edit: rearranged stuff.
Re: Ask YC: What do you think of my new search engine?
#39Pretty impressive results for the terms I searched for. Unfortunately, the design made me temporarily go blind. In all seriousness, the name is pretty horrible and I "feel" as if I am using a website, not a tool. Google feels like a tool - I get in an out quickly, it doesn't invade my flow. Your application (and others, like Mahalo) are so visually invasive I would never use them, no matter the results that we return…
Thanks for the feedback. I would very much like it to be a "tool" as you describe. I've gone through many design iterations, and have tried to keep the "clutter" down to a minimum. I would be interested to know what specific design elements you think are contributing to this problem. I know you said it isn't really a design problem, but there has to be more to say about it :) Colors? The results on the right?
For me, the highlight-and-underline-on-hover effect is very distracting. It would be nice if the search entry field had a stronger visual separation from the search results. There also needs to be a stronger visual separation between each search result. This might just be that I'm so heavily conditioned by Google, but I'm thrown off by the results being so far from the left edge of the screen. Also, the red, it's a little harsh, and the font size, it's a little big.
Otherwise, though, just playing around, this seems like a really nice search engine, the results seem great. If I didn't think it had a lot of promise, I wouldn't have posted a critique.
Re: Ask YC: What do you think of my new search engine?
#40Impressive. I "Ducked" one of my new favorite musicians and found a band he was in that I'd never heard of. Top entry was a Wikipedia blurb. I like it.