Google recently launched, then took down, then re-launched a set of new features that add Wiki-style capabilities to the search results pages of their site.  The features (see video below), let you do things like put comments on search results and adds Digg-like voting to results that consequently change the ranking of that result.

These changes are substantial to the rarely modified Google Search user interface, and as someone who studies and works in the User Design field, I thought I would share my thoughts on them.

Bloggers Take Sides

First, a bit of background.  There's great discussion for and against these features.  Michael Arrington, founder of one of the world's most popular blogs, TechCrunch, hates the new changes, saying "Google, It Wasn't Broken".

Google search wasn’t broken. It’s one of the few things on the Internet that isn’t. I love it, as does 62% of everyone on the Internet. This new stuff is a mess of arrows and troll comments and stuff moving around the page. That doesn’t make my search experience more useful. It makes it move to another search engine.

- Michael Arrington

On the other side, influential tech blogger Robert Scoble of Scobleizer, says Michael Arrington is wrong, and the new features "rock". 

These features rock. They let me add notes to entries in Google. They let me tell the search engine which entries are better for me and they help Google’s business BIG TIME.

- Robert Scoble

So who's right?  Who's wrong?  Let's dive in a little deeper and see if we can find out.

Argument Analysis

Arrington's point is a valid one.  The new features do in fact add more clutter to every page of Google, something that from a usability standpoint is never a good thing.  Simplicity is key.  Less is more.  But its hard to achieve, and in the world of bigger is better, and information overload we live in, its amazing that Google has kept their search pages so clean up to this point.  However, that may be why Google enjoys such a large market share to begin with.

Yet, Scoble counters with an interesting point.  How many of us actually search beyond the first page of results on Google?  He points to eye-tracking research that shows most Googlers don't go beyond the first result, nevermind the first page.  While I'm sceptical of this, I'm even more sceptical of exactly WHAT population such research was conducted with, and how the tests were concieved.

The main issue I see is that there is a strong difference in the way power-users and the average Googler search.  Power users are extremely goal-oriented and efficient in their searching.  We know what we're looking for and how to make Google find it for us--fast.  We, as Scoble admits himself, use Google "dozens" of times a day.  At the bare minimum of 2 dozen "dozens" per day, that amounts to 8,760 Google searches in one year.  When you use any piece of technology nearly 10,000 times per year, you will naturally learn how to optimally efficient in your usage.

However, my mother Googles about once or twice a week.  She does it for things like "wanting to find a new pasta maker".  She has vague goals, and doesn't know where to look.  She uses Google 104 times a year--down 98.8% from Mr. Scoble's yearly usage.

Conclusion, Your Thoughts

This sort of difference makes all the world in usability testing, which Mr. Scoble uses as the crux of his argument in support of Google's new changes to their results page.  Something to keep in mind as you form your own opinions on Google's new wiki-style search features.

Personally, I am going to hold off forming my own opinion just yet.  I've found often enough with these social type features, it takes a while for them to be used, grow, and then show their true potential.

So what do you think?  Do you side with Arrington, Scoble, or me?  Let me know in the comments below.