Yellowlane

Searching for Tomorrow

Searching for Tomorrow

Searching for Tomorrow

20 Jan 2004 — 2 Comments

Everybody knows that when it comes to finding information on the web, Google is king. But what happens when that search for "George Bush" returns 6.4 million responses? How do you dig through all those gold Googlie O's to find what you're looking for? Dubya? George H. W.? How about the new highway in Dallas?

While undeniably powerful, Google's page rankings are largely based on the number of links a given site receives over the web. So while you may be searching for information regarding the Iraq War, you have to dig through several (if not hundreds of) pages featuring DancingBush.com or the Houston Airport System to find what you're looking for.

This is not intuitive, to say the least.

Now imagine entering your search criteria, and instead of page after page of blue text, you are greeted with a simplistic categorical visual representation of those 6.4 million results. All the pages relating to the 2004 election grouped over here. All the pages about 41 and Barbara over there. All the satire pieces grouped together in this corner of your screen, and all the Saddam stuff in the other corner. Each group is visually represented in a circle relatively sized to the number of relevant pages in that category.

Not only do you quickly see the categorical results of what you're looking for, you can see relatively how many results there are compared to other categories. Edward Tufte would be proud.

But there's more. Click on a category and you're instantly greeted with sub-categories. And more sub-categories. All the way down until you find the exact page you are looking for.

This is Grokker, an amazing new desktop application from Groxis for Mac OS X and Windows XP. For a mere $49, one simply cannot fathom the time one will save by searching this way. Currently, a Grokker plug-in (included with Grokker) allows you to visually search AltaVista, MSN, Fast, Yahoo, and Teoma at once. Word is also out about a Grokker/Google test plug-in. You can browse and search files on your local hard drive as well.

Also included with the package is a killer Amazon plug-in, allowing you to visually browse every product in the Amazon database. Searching for the Beatles will organize all the CDs over here, the DVDs over there, and the Coffee Table books at the bottom, complete with cover art and more.

We'll admit we're proud supporters of the product as it features icons and interface elements designed by our own Firewheel Design, but Grokker's appeal goes far beyond it's pretty interface.

Grokker contains an OS-level web browser on both platforms, allowing you to click that Beatles book in the Grokker diagram and see it add to your cart in the browser. Safari is built in on the Mac, and no doubt IE on Windows XP. This is slick stuff, and one can only hope Grokker has ushered in a new era of search on the web.

Of other interest to web designers, Groxis develops enterprise-level Java applets for web site searching based on their Grokker concept. Check out this amazing visual search applet built for InterfaceFlor. Notice how clicking through the flooring samples on the left dynamically loads new HTML-based information and photographs on the right. This will challenge you to completely rethink designing an online catelog. And wish you had come up with the idea first.

Changes are on the horizon with product's like this. What do you think will change the way we envision the web?