We have been hard at work on Windows Live Search to create some new features that we hope our customers will love. As anyone who works on a service knows – the only real way to know if you’re successful is to run a test, and see what people think.
Well, that’s just what we’re in the process of doing. Since introducing a beta in March on Windows Live we have been experimenting with all sorts of things and now have begun testing things at a larger scale from MSN.
I wanted to take a moment to introduce you to some things the blogosphere has started noticing from our testing. Please check out the features, and keep an eye on both our MSN service, and our Windows Live service. It’s a fair bet that you’ll see more changes coming soon ;-) If you like them, hate them, or have any feedback for us – please send them our way – we’re all ears.
Image Search
As Robert Scoble, Don Dodge and Brady Forrest noticed – we have updated our image search beta. This update has improved relevance, an expanded index of images, faster AJAX code for the user experience, and a scratchpad for working on a collection of images. Also – check out the new “related names” feature by searching on anybody you consider famous – like Barry Bonds, George Bush, Bill Clinton or Oprah Winfrey. Careful, some users have found it addictive...
Video Search
As TechCrunch, LiveSide and Elizabeth Montalbano noticed, we have taken our first foray into searching video. It’s an early-stage service with some licensed content from Truveo - but give it a try on anything in the news like Kentucky, gas prices or Atlantis launch. We see more and more content coming online in video form – so we’re excited to give something to our customers to start searching it!
Macros
We have done a major rev to our macros feature we first showed in March. I think of a macro as building your own search engine in 3 minutes. When you create and save a macro, we create a permalink for your search engine so you can share it easily and add it to your favorites. You also get an integrated experience with our dynamic search bar that allows you to use your macro with one click. We’ve also introduced an easy wizard-like experience to make creating a macro a snap. You can check out our ever-growing gallery of user-created macros...
New User Experience
Since most searches happen right on the Web tab – we’ve invested a lot in user research and iterative testing to hone this experience to be fast, useful, and not bad to look at. You can see our new look that includes an improved set of fonts, colors and sizes. It also introduces a tool we call the “search bar”. The search bar provides a smart and consistent way to scope your search to different types of content including new beta services – so peek under the “more…” once and a while, you just might find a new offering to check out. The search bar starts out with a core set of the most common searches, but as you pick additional items from the “more…” menu or use Macros – you’ll see that they get promoted so you can return to them easily. Combining the search bar with macros can be very powerful.
The team and I will keep this blog up to date with major developments as they happen.
Ken Moss
General Manager Web Search
