Kevin Chiu

I participated in a search engine usability study today.

Google Code Search was supposed to be the crappiest among the given search engines - the Raphael said he would probably need to assist me during the tasks since they were known to trip up previous participants.

During the trial I discovered the trick to making Google Code Search work. Type in “test” after your query. This brings up test suites related to your result, which means you can figure out how to use the resulting APIs by example.

“You are by far the fastest Googler I have ever seen.”

My prize? $30 Amazon gift certificate. Yummy.

You have to vaguely know what you need.

Once you’re near the answer you don’t know you need, search relies on serendipity for suggestions.

What it really needs is empathy.

Live labs has just released “3d mode” for local.live.com. I’ve tested it on IE7 and it’s like Google Earth mapped with local.live.com data.

Here’s what it looks like if you haven’t installed it yet:

Once you click the install button in the left sidebar, you get a helper program to install locally, which augments the local.live interface whenever you visit the site.

Here it is installed on Vista in IE7:

From the makers of Riya.com comes Like.com, where you can search for things that are similar to each other in shape and/or color.

Here’s what happens when you click on a watch some celeb is wearing in a picture, and say you’re looking for other watches with a similar minidial arrangement.