Vidit Bhargava
Step 1: Open Google Chrome
Step 2: Goto Start searching in address bar. Press Enter
Step 3: Look at the Results Page
GOOGLE INSTANT PREVIEWS? GONE!!!
Step 4: Click on a few links, top results? They seem bogus. They are bogus, but you'll never know what they contain before you visit them.
Step 5: RETIRE IN RAGE and Start typing this blog post.
This is what I did in the last few minutes, when I went to Google to search for something. User Experience? Its been murdered and stamped upon at the 'new' Google Approach of cleaning. One spring they just take out their brooms and strip google of tons of services. No matter how many people want to use it or like it or find it highly useful, if Google thinks its unpopular It is ready to pack its bags and off it goes. Recently Google shut down Google Reader, this caused a lot of public uproar. More recently, Google showed the door to Instant Previews, not much uproar, didn't even make it to the news but for a certain minority of people like me it has just ruined the search experience.
Here's what I use to do when Google had this nice little Instant Previews feature:
1. I would search for something.
2. Skim through the preview of every page,
3. And if I found it useful I would open the link.
Instant Previews have for long been a great tool to keep my computer away from Malware. If I would find a website of slightly suspicious nature in the preview, i would definitely not open it. But Now I am left with no other option but to guess.
What I am left with, now is:
1. I search for something.
2. Have to figure out the right page for me, by the website name or link.
3. Sometimes when in a hurry, i am looking for a blog post, i end up on a forums page.
4. I know longer feel like I am using a modern search engine. It looks as though i am using something from the 1990s.
Its disgusting to see that Google removed this. Its practically a 'The End' to whatever user experience was left on Google Search Results. I no longer feel like using it. I am thinking of shifting this blog to somewhere safer too, I might wake up one day to find that google has shut down Blogger because of 'low demand' or worse still, they might 'upgrade' it to one of their Ugly, unresourceful dynamic themes. GOODBYE GOOGLE SEARCH! I shall look for a better option soon.
