Gord Hotchkiss blogged about an amazing interview with usability expert Jakob Nielsen on the future of the search results. A discussion ensued on Cre8asite Forums about the interview, since Nielsen brings up a lot of really interesting points:
- He says that results may not be computed by the number of links in the future so sites like Wikipedia may no longer be in the forefront.
- He proposes changing the search results to more two-dimensional layouts.
- He believes that personalization is impossible since people may want different results depending on the time of day.
- Display ads may cause "banner blindness" which means that users may disregard other multimedia presented on the page.
Bill Slawski disagrees with much of what Nielsen says. For one, he believes that the search results have changed drastically within 3 years, whereas Nielsen believes that they haven't. He also believes that Wikipedia is useful as a starting point in conducting research -- and I'd agree with that. Wikipedia links are often relevant to the typical user.
The interview is very comprehensive but should definitely be read, and forum discussion continues at Cre8asite Forums.
