The next version of DuckDuckGo • Hacker News Board

Re: The next version of DuckDuckGo

#141

Post by mryingster » Mon, May 05, 2014, 9:07 PM UTC

Thank you for adding image search! That's about the only thing I really rely on Google for. Giving it its own dedicated full page rather than just a section would be very welcomed as well.

Two other things. Others have mentioned having the links always blue, not just when rolling over. I would like this as well to make it a little quicker/more evident where the physical link is.

Secondly, I like the link to see more results from whichever domain, however I am wondering if we can also have a "hide results from whatever domain" so we can hide useless spammy domains that may show up in our results. This is a huge problem on Google, though I haven't noticed it as badly on DDG.

At any rate, I love DDG! Thanks for the hard work!

Re: The next version of DuckDuckGo

#142

Post by brokenparser » Mon, May 05, 2014, 9:08 PM UTC

I love Duck and the focus on privacy it has, but lately I've been using searx and had more success with it than ddg given the same queries. You can find running instances here: https://github.com/asciimoo/searx/wiki/Searx-instances

Re: The next version of DuckDuckGo

#143

Post by lojack » Mon, May 05, 2014, 9:13 PM UTC

yahelc wrote: post #135

Anyone know how DDG is detecting this: > Your browser indicates if you've visited this link. I was under the impression that browsers try to block sites from being able to detect this. Traditionally, the hack has been with the :visited pseudo-class, but not sure if there's more at play here. Kind of a weird feature for a search engine whose tagline is "The search engine that doesn't track you."

It appears to use the :visited pseudo-class. You'll notice if you click that area it'll link to the page.

Re: The next version of DuckDuckGo

#144

Post by batuhanicoz » Mon, May 05, 2014, 9:19 PM UTC

yegg wrote: post #105

fsck--off wrote: post #61

I use DuckDuckGo as my primary search engine and have had a positive experience using it. This redesign incorporates two of the worst design trends today: very low contrast text and gratuitously, obnoxiously large fixed headers. I dislike fixed headers on any non-phone/tablet UI because almost all laptop and desktop screens are widescreen. Fixed position elements on the sides of the screen make much more sense, altho…

Thanks for the feedback! Our current version also has a fixed header, and that can be turned off in the settings, which we plan to make work in this next version as well. Noted on contrast. We will look into it more -- that's exactly the kind of feedback we were hoping to get.

I think showing only tabs[0] with the fixed header would be better? I'm not sure which part of the header is used more often though. You guys must keep some stats on the usage patterns.

And one more suggestion about this: When I click on the up arrow, focusing on the search bar would be nice. But that may be just me.

[0] Like this: http://cl.ly/VMql

Re: The next version of DuckDuckGo

#145

Post by Alphasite_ » Mon, May 05, 2014, 9:23 PM UTC

fsck--off wrote: post #61

I use DuckDuckGo as my primary search engine and have had a positive experience using it. This redesign incorporates two of the worst design trends today: very low contrast text and gratuitously, obnoxiously large fixed headers. I dislike fixed headers on any non-phone/tablet UI because almost all laptop and desktop screens are widescreen. Fixed position elements on the sides of the screen make much more sense, altho…

Well you can't really assume people have anything setup properly, so i can understand why they're doing it.

Re: The next version of DuckDuckGo

#146

Post by iconjack » Mon, May 05, 2014, 9:25 PM UTC

vgnanand wrote: post #9

yegg wrote: post #2

Hi all, thanks for checking it out and we're looking forward to your feedback! This next version of DuckDuckGo is in public beta. Here's the post about it I just made: https://duck.co/forum/thread/5726/duckduckgo-reimagined-and-... There are still a lot known issues that we're still working through before we can make the transition. I'm sure this thread will uncover more :)

The image and video search is slick. great job.

How are you searching for images? I used !images but it just sent me to Google Images.

Re: The next version of DuckDuckGo

#147

Post by pi-squared » Mon, May 05, 2014, 9:27 PM UTC

Don't center and add the fixed horizontal limit for images when there is an instant answer.

Re: The next version of DuckDuckGo

#148

Post by atmosx » Mon, May 05, 2014, 9:27 PM UTC

I would love to use DDG as my default search engine but anything other than Google is extremely poor when it comes to the non-English side of the WWW. Google was way better at sorting Greek web-pages last time I checked. I'll give DDG another try though, might turned better...

Re: The next version of DuckDuckGo

#149

Post by yconst » Mon, May 05, 2014, 9:27 PM UTC

fsck--off wrote: post #61

I use DuckDuckGo as my primary search engine and have had a positive experience using it. This redesign incorporates two of the worst design trends today: very low contrast text and gratuitously, obnoxiously large fixed headers. I dislike fixed headers on any non-phone/tablet UI because almost all laptop and desktop screens are widescreen. Fixed position elements on the sides of the screen make much more sense, altho…

Your last argument, I find it irrelevant. Buttons and links etc. change colours not because of their inability to indicate their function, but to enhance the interactive experience. In most cases you get exactly the same effect with so-called "skeyomorphic" elements, no difference at all. The whole discussion has nothing to do with your "underlined links" argument.

The flat look has received a lot of criticism in the past couple years, but to be completely honest, in the many arguments I've heard against it, I couldn't really find one that can really stand it's ground if I may say so. On the contrary, I find a lot of merit in the new principles that are being embraced trough this approach, such as e.g. the emphasis on interaction to distinguish elements, instead of artificially imposed "symbolisms" (whether this is an underline, or a button-shaped, well, button :) ). This gives me a hint that, as a design community, we have a more mature approach to designing for those unearthly things we call "devices" than we did a few years back :)

Re: The next version of DuckDuckGo

#150

Post by teaneedz » Mon, May 05, 2014, 9:28 PM UTC

yegg wrote: post #105

fsck--off wrote: post #61

I use DuckDuckGo as my primary search engine and have had a positive experience using it. This redesign incorporates two of the worst design trends today: very low contrast text and gratuitously, obnoxiously large fixed headers. I dislike fixed headers on any non-phone/tablet UI because almost all laptop and desktop screens are widescreen. Fixed position elements on the sides of the screen make much more sense, altho…

Thanks for the feedback! Our current version also has a fixed header, and that can be turned off in the settings, which we plan to make work in this next version as well. Noted on contrast. We will look into it more -- that's exactly the kind of feedback we were hoping to get.

I'm in the camp that actually likes the new look. It conveys a modern minimalist view while the extras just get out of your way.

I've been mostly against flat design for a number of reasons but IMO, you've achieved a great design. I really like the minimalism of the hamburger button. Again, everything just gets out of your way.

Perhaps enlarging the font-size of the search result snippets might help with the contrast complaints - personally, I like your use of the grays. Again, it conveys a modern design.

I really hope that there will be an updated iOS app soon too :)