Duckduckgo is a new search engine that has few interesting features that enhace search experience in quite nice extent. First of all it offers keyboard navigation. There is no option to go for the next page of results, only thing we can do is scrolling down with donw cursor, and subsequent results are displaying onboard.

hat is noticable after few queries the quality of results is quite high. There’s almost no spam, so it is with the ads. In sidebar realted topics and images are displayed, we can switch between columns with left and right cursor. List of related links in the sidebar is also ‘infinite’, just like results.

By typing in single term in our query, the term with general meaning, like i.e. “media”, we get a list of topics acquired from human search engines, so we may always find something interesting. However by typing a term that is more complex and at the same time easier to be defined like i.e. “social bookmarking” we get its definition displayed above search results.

Duckduckgo also enables users to search directly in other search engines, you can do it by typing down ‘!’ and search engine name after it. There is also option check your IP, by entering “ip” in the search box. Duckduckgo is also equiped in calculator and several other option, find full  list here.

Duckduckgo seems to be nice alternative to other search engines, it can gain some small part of market thanks to its improvements on field of “making search more friendly”.

-mw

Cloudlet is a firefox add-on that enables users to narrow search with a cloud tag in search queries conducted with Google and Yahoo.  At the top of the search results sites the cloud of tags is displayed. By clicking on specific tags we can add them to our query, efficiently reducing number of search results. There’s also option to narrow the search with the cloud of sites, and in searching through News - also location.

At the moment Cloudlet team is working on the version for IE and adding more search engines to their service.

-mw

New service named Tazti (prenounce ‘tasty’) is a speach recognition software, which enables users to execute searches in more than 16 search engines and services. Among most important Google, Yahoo!, MSN, ASK, Wikipedia, YouTube, eBay, Amazon, Flickr, Facebook, MySpace, and Google Finance can be counted. Tazti also enables to search through bookmarks.

Tazti is not only gearded towards navigating search engines. It is possible also to navigate iTunes and through social services, like Facebook. THe other feature of Tazti gives its users an option to create own commands for programmed actions. Watch video to find out more

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I write here also about methods of organizing information and the way how we can handle its surplus. These surplus is visible also in our desktops - where we save all files that we were going to read but it turned out that there wasn’t enough time. Sometimes it happens that one does not want to remove such files and keeps them on his dekstop for more conducive time.

BumpTop is a project annouced at least two years ago, than its presentation looked very impressive. They claimed that they were going to give us desktop in 3D, where icons can be moved and interact between each other according to laws of physics.

Most innovative feature was the possibility of creating piles of icons, for example of the same type or regarding the same case. BumpTOp also presented some fresh ideas on how to manage, sort and browse this piles. Everything was presented on video, published in June 2006:

Right now there is beta version available, but only for those, who were previously registered and accepted by authors of BumpTop. It looks like we have to wait for more opened tests.

BumpTop can be extremely helpful in handling with the choas on our desktops and of course, by the fact it has 3 dimensions the volume of possible data storage (number of files) increases - not only we can put files into piles, but also we can stick them to walls.

-mw

Have You ever wondered about how the information on websites is organised? How is it connected to make it easier finding what we want on particular pages? Most of us are not even aware that navigation is most crucial part of design for page’s usefulness. Most typical navigation types are: vertical and horizontal menus, but recently, mainly thanks to flash technology it became possible to design navigation that brakes this convention.

I’ve selected few pages characterizing with unconventional navigation, the choice was made basing on the bestwebgallery.com, which presents fresh ideas in web design. Common features of chosen pages are technical advancement and navigation far different from classic one.

Navigation at most of them is commonly defined as an act of directing the way of something. In the web it is an act of directing a way for ourselves and to move around the information. Designing unconventional navigation is a risky task, it has to be intuitive (many different users have to act in the same way to find information we want them to). That seems to be most important thing in designing non-linear navigation - prognostication of intuitiveness among page’s target group.

One of my former lecturers said that Internet is a cluster of technologies, which are the adaptation of technologies existing in the past. He meant mainly the map and telegraph. I will focus on the example with the map. Map is a copy of the real surface, it presents two-dimensional projection of reality by educing it from its surrounding.

Simcityds.ea.com and Betaclan.net - this examples give the most simple illustration of that process. It is also visible in the case of Agencynet.com and Creaktif.com, where designers replaced the open-area map with plans of buildings.

"Flying islands" at Rakugaki.iekaki.jp

Other example of such a map-alike projection is given by designers of Rakugaki.iekaki.jp. This is more advanced and very innovative method of data presentation. It worth adding, that this site is a poll results presentation. Flying islands suspended in three-dimensional space can serve us as an very inspiring example of breaking convention of navigation design.

We can find something similar at Javierferrervidal.com, where we can preview the photos, which seem to be spread in 3D, their configuration is chaotic and irregular, but we can randomize them even more. Before we got to the portfolio, we can navigate moving towards unexpected and random directions, what can be also considered as one of characteristics of unconventional navigation.

Please note, that in case of Rakugaki.iekaki.jp the navigation is doubled, below the content we can find images of particular islands, we can switch between.

"Board game" at Problemplayground.com

Sort of projection of map was implemented by designers of the site Problemplayground.com, whole content is interactive, its graphic presentation looks like a board game, we can switch between sections. Navigation is also doubled, we have classic horizontal menu in the left-upper corner and we can navigate by clicking on the content or the arrows, that display on the edges after moving the cursor.

The other innovative form of navigation are interactive videos. It was implemented on Theovenreinvented.com. Users can interact with the virtual characters, representing the organizations by clicking on items in the video. User gets the opportunity to choose between few different scenarios, which is also a characteristic for non-linear navigation, it is more individualised.

"Chaotic" portfolio in 3D at Javierferrervidal.com

Unfortunately common feature for most websites with untypical navigation is the lack of two-sided communication between the users and admin. In 2.0 era simple e-mail form may look like a step back,  as far as design is concerned. As far unconventional navigation is lonely one not social. It seems to be the result of destination of particular services. Their nature does not require implementing all new forms of communication - most of them were designed to be presentation of product, portfolio or idea. The exception is site Rakugaki.iekaki.jp, which is a very advanced poll result presentation where we can add our comments and opinion.

Non-linear navigation is predominantly supported by using the classical navigation forms, but also some technical tricks can be helpful, I mean - lightening clickable elements, or sound effects after moving the cursor on them. This can vastly improve the intuitiveness of navigation. Also leaving the space between particular elements of design increases the comfortableness in browsing the site.

It seems that significant thing for intuitiveness and user’s confidence while browsing with unconventional navigation is using popular-culture references in the design, they can efficiently amplify the message.

It looks like it is a popular idea among non-linear navigation designers to secure themselves by introducing double navigation - classical and unconventional one. It should, at least in some part, prevent outflow of users, who cannot find themselves using such an innovative service.