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New DuckDuckGo design

duckduckgo.com

171–180 of 225 posts

Re: New DuckDuckGo design

#171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think it is a mistake to concentrate on clean design on a search engine until the searching algorithm is not that good. The team focusing on the design is, I'm sure, not the same team focusing on the search algorithm. I don't see any reason why the design team should stop improvements because of the search algorithm.

I general if the money is spent on design but the functionality is not quite there yet, that money is not very well spent...

Downvoted, as that is a misunderstanding that design is neither just on the surface, nor underneath. It pervades all the way through. You have to iteratively improve it all.

Re: New DuckDuckGo design

#173
post #31

That's awesome! I've been using the beta for a while and it's been much better than the old site. A bunch of ideas/complains: - It's awesome that you're showing me a nice map when I search for places/address, but let's be honest, I'll probably need to load it into an online map (OSM, MapQuest, Google Maps) to get directions. So a "open in map" button would be great (yes, I can copy/paste the address and !bang it, but…

So the maps did work for you? I looked up a few places just to test it out and most of them were not found or not identified as places. I am living in New Hampshire, so perhaps they just haven't done much with NH addresses yet. I love duckduckgo and I am glad that they are making improvements but I currently can't use the map feature reliably.

Also not working for me if I search for some random street address (which works well on Google), even if I add a zip code to the end. Even if it isn't possible to be confident enough to show the map first thing like Google does, at least adding a map tap on any search that looks like it could possible be interpreted as a map would be cool (though I could fairly easily just add !map, so it isn't that important).

Edit: tried a few more and some of them work. It seems like intersections may never work and some addresses don't work.

Other suggestions for DDG:

Speaking of !bang!, did you consider making the tabs !images, !video, etc.? That might help more people discover that really cool feature that I didn't know existed until folks here mentioned it (and is why I switched to DDG as my primary search engine). Similarly, the "try these other search engines" section at the end could have !g, etc. in parentheses.

I'd also suggest keeping the X in the search bar visible all the time, at least if the page is wider than some minimum width.

I like the few orange lines at the top of the page as the only header to make it easier to identify the page. I just noticed the up arrow off to the right when scrolled down, which is helpful too.

I really like that you just show the site rather than the full url until I mouse over that result.

The one thing I miss is the longer text list of meanings; only being able to scroll three at a time isn't fun if I'm looking for number 11, but before it was easy to pick out #11 even if I had to click once to expand the results.

Edit: I just noticed the result site favicons, which is nice too. I don't remember if that was there before, but I hadn't explicitly noticed it. I use the FaviconizeTab extention on Firefox so I appreciate wider use of favicons :).

Re: New DuckDuckGo design

#174
post #34

Unrelated UI nitpicking: I feel like I should be able to scroll on this page. Just seeing the top of the virtual screen is annoying.

Yes, I couldn't concentrate on content because I had an urge to scroll it down.

Re: New DuckDuckGo design

#175
I really like the new design, but I'm still hoping for better discovery of bangs. Perhaps DDG could include links to suggested bangs alongside Images and Videos based on the search term. With the final link being a dropdown of all other available bangs (sorted by potential relevance maybe). Another possibility would be to include the list of bangs (or a shortened one) in the pull out side menu. For me, bangs are one of the best features of DDG, and it's disappointing that they aren't more discoverable.

Re: New DuckDuckGo design

#176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the maps did work for you? I looked up a few places just to test it out and most of them were not found or not identified as places. I am living in New Hampshire, so perhaps they just haven't done much with NH addresses yet. I love duckduckgo and I am glad that they are making improvements but I currently can't use the map feature reliably.

Also not working for me if I search for some random street address (which works well on Google), even if I add a zip code to the end. Even if it isn't possible to be confident enough to show the map first thing like Google does, at least adding a map tap on any search that looks like it could possible be interpreted as a map would be cool (though I could fairly easily just add !map, so it isn't that important). Edit:…

Yeah, I think it's not DDG's fault. It looks like they are using OpenStreetMaps, and OSM is not finding the address that I look up either. It's definitely an admirable project that I look forward to using eventually.

Re: New DuckDuckGo design

#177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also not working for me if I search for some random street address (which works well on Google), even if I add a zip code to the end. Even if it isn't possible to be confident enough to show the map first thing like Google does, at least adding a map tap on any search that looks like it could possible be interpreted as a map would be cool (though I could fairly easily just add !map, so it isn't that important). Edit:…

Yeah, I think it's not DDG's fault. It looks like they are using OpenStreetMaps, and OSM is not finding the address that I look up either. It's definitely an admirable project that I look forward to using eventually.

Thanks, that seems to be the case for me as well testing on openstreetmaps.org. In one case I tried openstreetmaps.org is returning two options (one of them being what I entered :/), so it seems like in that case DDG also just doesn't show a map tab.

(this reminds me why I never try to use OSM more than once every year or two; I hit too many cases too easily where it doesn't work; maybe I can just use DDG results to determine when OSM is worth trying :) ).

Re: New DuckDuckGo design

#178
I never really gave DDG a shot until now. I tweaked the link color as suggested above to the DDG orange #C9481C (surprised blue was the only option.. had to use custom color and dig into your CSS to find that) and I think I'll give it a shot for at least a week. !bang seems to make up for any deficiencies (I'll probably be using !gm the most, for when I need directions).. right now things are looking great. Keep up the good work!

Re: New DuckDuckGo design

#179
I've started using ddg instead of consistently skipping it by using g! since the new design came out. I didn't really grok how much the design played into my trust of its results until now.

Big improvement imo.

Re: New DuckDuckGo design

#180

A question for DDG or anyone who might know: How does DDG plan to monetize this without storing any data?

By selling adverts based on the current query. It already does so.

Thanks. That is sort of like going to war with knives amongst machine guns, but what do I know.
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