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Eye-tracking studies: more than meets the eye

Imagine that you need a refresher on how to tie a tie. So, you decide to type [how to tie a tie] into the Google search box. Which of these results would you choose? <img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5297226899518548434" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ3zxth2piK3LXkTi_GBpK47lDI5N86_bWUTURY5k8uzVuBoceKedp39isy1Rs3ZgclIxwvUThArfmrUBUzto3M8Vcfk7H9sM4y7vnsQ5P78GWDeV63aw2ihudo6MndmhAZgDLgUzCEMRu/s400/1-howtotieatie.jpg" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 382px; height: 400px;" /> Where did your eyes go first when you saw the results page? Did they go directly to the title of the first result? Did you first check the terms in boldface to see if the results really talk about tying a tie? Or maybe the images captured your attention and drew your eyes to them? You might find it difficult to answer these questions. You probably did not pay attention to where you were looking on the page and you most likely only used a few seconds to visually scan the results. Our User Experience Research team has found that people evaluate the search results page so quickly that they make most of their decisions unconsciously. To help us get some insight into this split-second decision-making process, we use eye-tracking equipment in our usability labs. This lets us see how our study participants scan the search results page, and is the next best thing to actually being able to read their minds. Of course, eye-tracking does not really tell us what they are thinking, but it gives us a good idea of which parts of the page they are thinking about. To see what the eye-tracking data we collect looks like, let's go back to the results page we got for the query [how to tie a tie]. The following video clip shows in real time how a participant in our study scanned the page. And yes, seriously — the video is in real time! That's how fast the eyes move when scanning a page. The larger the dot gets, the longer the users' eye pauses looking at that specific location. <object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/w29DrEEsqT4&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/w29DrEEsqT4&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object> Based on eye-tracking studies, we know that people tend to scan the search results in order. They start from the first result and continue down the list until they find a result they consider helpful and click it — or until they decide to refine their query. The heatmap below shows the activity of 34 usability study participants scanning a typical Google results page. The darker the pattern, the more time they spent looking at that part of the page. This pattern suggests that the order in which Google returned the results was successful; most users found what they were looking for among the first two results and they never needed to go further down the page. <img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5297226902585795138" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH5AuBvxX4x9tc6hjlMcoVB-rrWOqXh__FcYZDY-AxgHx09-F98z_Lp0xiUoMVDIArMWJYKL1w0lhrGeH8LxkS_zfEH62L_pY-zGVN61xC2aRngLBvA4bll1lmDewHLxrrMI-5DUskaEH0/s400/2-goldentriangle.jpg" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 374px; height: 400px;" /> When designing the user interface for <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/05/universal-search-best-answer-is-still.html">Universal Search</a>, the team wanted to incorporate thumbnail images to better represent certain kinds of results. For example, in the [how to tie a tie] example above, we have added thumbnails for Image and Video results. However, we were concerned that the thumbnail images might be distracting and disrupt the well-established order of result evaluation. We ran a series of eye-tracking studies where we compared how users scan the search results pages with and without thumbnail images. Our studies showed that the thumbnails did not strongly affect the order of scanning the results and seemed to make it easier for the participants to find the result they wanted. The thumbnail image seemed to make results with thumbnails easy to notice when the users wanted them (see screenshots below — page with the thumbnail image on the right)... <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ2q3FuqakUGfxLkKrz47Uk_oKuEh7ilNWFC6lBTxBnI1tLmoamtMDBtAAyCn_AKOZqEepNHsZU07n1p5NVQJOHANVmL3Z3FoiC2IeC30Y1uZTL4231V57Yb8p2d5EzHzsn5BCRk56YKCT/s1600-h/3-aninconvenienttruth.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5299742939311627346" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ2q3FuqakUGfxLkKrz47Uk_oKuEh7ilNWFC6lBTxBnI1tLmoamtMDBtAAyCn_AKOZqEepNHsZU07n1p5NVQJOHANVmL3Z3FoiC2IeC30Y1uZTL4231V57Yb8p2d5EzHzsn5BCRk56YKCT/s400/3-aninconvenienttruth.jpg" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 142px;" /></a><div style="text-align: center;">Click the images to  view them larger. </div><div><div style="text-align: center;"> </div><div>...and the thumbnails also seemed to make it easy for people to skip over the results with thumbnails when those results were not relevant to their search (page with the thumbnail on the right). <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd4dlQKPJZm8KK0ccza5j3tg0p2HzJycQRMC1s_rT_w5bZ66JiAPZ2Bc-ZF22UyUQypBoeqrwjQfYObRNDs6JEAgRebfVdLk2OdiiTBulM-FZRSY29iXE3JZahXpEr7mpS9Pjx-K6pSZQ4/s1600-h/4-bees.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5299742942596031810" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd4dlQKPJZm8KK0ccza5j3tg0p2HzJycQRMC1s_rT_w5bZ66JiAPZ2Bc-ZF22UyUQypBoeqrwjQfYObRNDs6JEAgRebfVdLk2OdiiTBulM-FZRSY29iXE3JZahXpEr7mpS9Pjx-K6pSZQ4/s400/4-bees.jpg" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 155px;" /></a> </div><div>For the Universal Search team, this was a successful outcome. It showed that we had managed to design a subtle user interface that gives people helpful information without getting in the way of their primary task: finding relevant information. In addition to search research, we also use eye-tracking to study the usability of other products, such as <a href="http://news.google.com/">Google News</a> and <a href="http://images.google.com/">Image Search</a>. For these products, eye-tracking helps us answer questions, such as "Is the 'Top Stories' link discoverable on the left of the Google News page?" or "How do the users typically scan the image results — in rows, in columns or in some other way?" Eye-tracking gives us valuable information about our users' focus of attention — information that would be very hard to come by any other way and that we can use to improve the design of our products. However, in our ongoing quest to make our products more useful, usable, and enjoyable, we always complement our eye-tracking studies with other methods, such as interviews, <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/art-of-field-study.html">field studies</a> and <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/04/this-is-test-this-is-only-test.html">live experiments</a>. Posted by Anne Aula and Kerry Rodden, User Experience Researchers</div></div>

Eye-tracking studies: more than meets the eye

Imagine that you need a refresher on how to tie a tie. So, you decide to type [how to tie a tie] into the Google search box. Which of these ...

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See where your friends are with Google Latitude

How often do you find yourself wondering where your friends are and what they're up to? It's a pretty central question to our daily social lives, and it's precisely the question you can now answer using Google Latitude. Latitude is a new feature for Google Maps on your mobile device. It's also an iGoogle gadget on your computer. Once you've opted in to Latitude, you can see the approximate location of your friends and loved ones who have decided to share their location with you. So now you can do things like see if your spouse is stuck in traffic on the way home from work, notice that a buddy is in town for the weekend, or take comfort in knowing that a loved one's flight landed safely, despite bad weather. And with Latitude, not only can you see your friends' locations on a map, but you can also be in touch directly via SMS, Google Talk, Gmail, or by updating your status message; you can even upload a new profile photo on the fly. It's a fun way to feel close to the people you care about. Fun aside, we recognize the sensitivity of location data, so we've built fine-grained privacy controls right into the application. Everything about Latitude is opt-in. You not only control exactly who gets to see your location, but you also decide the location that they see. For instance, let's say you are in Rome. Instead of having your approximate location detected and shared automatically, you can manually set your location for elsewhere — perhaps a visit to Niagara Falls . Since you may not want to share the same information with everyone, Latitude lets you change the settings on a friend-by-friend basis. So for each person, you can choose to share your best available location or your city-level location, or you can hide. Everything is under your control and, of course, you can sign out of Latitude at any time. <a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=u9H4xaTspaQ">Check out this video</a> to learn more about the privacy features. Finally, since we'd like you to be able to use Latitude with any of your friends, we've been working hard to make it available to as many people as possible. Today, Latitude is available in 27 countries, and we hope to add more soon. Ready to share your location? If you have a mobile smartphone, visit google.com/latitude on your phone's web browser to download the latest version of Google Maps for mobile with Latitude. Latitude is available on Blackberry, S60, and Windows Mobile, and will be available on Android in the next few days. We expect it will be coming to the iPhone, through Google Mobile App, very soon. No smartphone? No worries. Visit <a href="http://google.com/latitude">google.com/latitude</a> on your desktop or laptop to install the Latitude iGoogle gadget and share your location right from your computer. If you have <a href="http://gears.google.com/">Google Gears</a> installed in your browser (you do by default if you use Google Chrome), you can automatically share your location; otherwise, manually set your location to let your friends know where you are. Visit the <a href="http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2009/02/locate-your-friends-in-real-time-with.html">Google Mobile blog</a> for more details, and check out the video below to see Latitude in action. <object height="295" width="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Q-Oq-9enE-k&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Q-Oq-9enE-k&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="295"></embed></object> Posted by Vic Gundotra, VP Engineering, Google mobile team

See where your friends are with Google Latitude

How often do you find yourself wondering where your friends are and what they're up to? It's a pretty central question to our daily ...

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Add Google News to your website

The world is a quickly changing place and it's getting harder and harder to stay on top of the news. With this in mind, we've just released a Google News–based element for webmasters and developers. This makes it easy to integrate headlines and previews from Google News into any webpage, and for newspapers to reach new audiences across the web. Whether your visitors are interested in <a href="http://www.google.com/uds/modules/elements/newsshow/iframe.html?format=300x250&topic=b">business</a>, <a href="http://www.google.com/uds/modules/elements/newsshow/iframe.html?format=728x90&topic=e">entertainment</a> or <a href="http://www.google.com/uds/modules/elements/newsshow/iframe.html?format=300x250&q=Fashion">fashion</a>, you control the types of stories in your personal news show. You can input keywords like "<a href="http://www.google.com/uds/modules/elements/newsshow/iframe.html?format=300x250&q=Obama">Obama</a> " or "<a href="http://www.google.com/uds/modules/elements/newsshow/iframe.html?format=728x90&q=Superbowl">Superbowl</a>" or broad topics like "world news" or "politics." For more information, check out our <a href="http://googleajaxsearchapi.blogspot.com/2009/02/adding-google-news-to-your-website.html">post</a> on the AJAX Search API Blog or get started with our <a href="http://code.google.com/apis/ajaxsearch/documentation/newsshow/wizard.html">wizard</a> to automatically generate the code for you. <iframe src="http://www.google.com/uds/modules/elements/newsshow/iframe.html?format=300x250" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" frameborder="0" height="250" width="300"></iframe> Posted by Adam Feldman, AJAX API team

Add Google News to your website

The world is a quickly changing place and it's getting harder and harder to stay on top of the news. With this in mind, we've just r...

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India Internet Bus Project rolls in

Today, we launched the Internet Bus Project, an initiative designed to showcase the benefits of the Internet to the people across the cities of the Indian state of <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=tamil+nadu,+india&sll=11.888853,78.662109&sspn=10.692796,12.502441&g=tamil+nadu,+india&ie=UTF8&ll=12.404389,78.662109&spn=10.159218,12.502441&z=6&iwloc=addr">Tamil Nadu</a>. Over the last few years, we've been witnessing a steady growth in Internet adoption, but we wanted to do more to directly engage the offline population of India. So we're hitting the road over the next month and a half to demonstrate how the Internet can make everyday tasks simple with tools like Google Search, Gmail, Google Maps and more. To learn more about the project and get updates from the road, visit the <a title="Google India Blog" href="http://googleindia.blogspot.com/" id="k2va">Google India Blog</a> or the <a title="Internet Bus Project website" href="http://www.google.co.in/internetbus" id="ukva">Internet Bus Project website</a>. Posted by Prem Ramaswami and Srikanth Belwadi, Product Managers

India Internet Bus Project rolls in

Today, we launched the Internet Bus Project, an initiative designed to showcase the benefits of the Internet to the people across the cities...

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Doodle 4 Google — tell us what you wish for the world

<a href="http://www.google.com/doodle4google/" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5298566834192806530" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpvUQyWFkCj5uQeQtSBO0E5eQ2TNQKm5FpGwQhaC967uhtJkojSZWluIc1U22eTs0AekgvaPcP5qHMDk68PGonAXnA-GUdS-ZHyap8_PAmTeyiTpTEOwScvcJYWuTN95jQ4K5QsiVXzMBM/s400/d4g_us09_webfinal.gif" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; float: right; height: 80px; width: 175px;" /></a>Today, we're announcing our second annual Doodle 4 Google contest in the U.S. Google doodles are the special "dressed-up" logos we run on our homepage for holidays and other events, and Doodle 4 Google is an opportunity for one child to have his/her artwork displayed on our homepage as a doodle for hundreds of millions of people to see. This year's theme is "What I Wish for the World," as we really want to tap into not only children's creativity but also what they want their future to look like. We're very excited this year to be partnering with the <a href="http://www.cooperhewitt.org/">Smithsonian's, Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum</a>. Since Cooper-Hewitt is focused on design and education and fostering the brightest design minds of tomorrow, they were a natural partner for Doodle 4 Google. Their partnership also means that this year's prizes not only include having your artwork on the Google homepage for a day, a college scholarship, and a technology grant for your school, but also having your work (and that of all 40 finalists) exhibited at a Smithsonian museum! Most of this year's contest remains the same as last year's. (For inspiration, you can see Grace Moon's beautiful winning doodle "<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim1f_09jlrbYTmDTynDCoD-d-0_NGpXzU4aVcaIG4_th0kjdOTpB0LDbRkOG8iWjHoPKB0DB-J5kan1ZX5n7l0ph0mVYeuxgfZsQgH6u7Z_3YiRpOiAKyoYFpvyLOc3VtnhaNh-gXEpsDv/s1600-h/D4G_2008.gif">Up In the Clouds</a>" in our <a href="http://www.google.com/doodle4google/regional_winners_2008.html#">Doodle Gallery</a>). However, there are a few changes. First, we've increased the college scholarship prize for the national winner to $15,000. We've also added a $10,000 prize for the school district that submits the most high-quality entries. Finally, in partnership with Cooper-Hewitt, we'll be celebrating the 40 finalists and announcing the national winner in New York City, to coincide with the opening of the exhibit. Please visit the <a href="http://www.google.com/doodle4google/">official competition website</a> for a full listing of all contest rules and requirements. Only students from registered schools can enter, so teachers, if you want to participate please register your school by March 17, 2009. All doodles must be submitted by March 31, 2009. Posted by Marissa Mayer, VP of Search Products & User Experience

Doodle 4 Google — tell us what you wish for the world

Today, we're announcing our second annual Doodle 4 Google contest in the U.S. Google doodles are the special "dressed-up" log...

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Dive into the new Google Earth

As you read this, I am at the beautiful <a href="http://www.calacademy.org/" id="qd7l" title="California Academy of Sciences">California Academy of Sciences</a>, announcing the launch of the newest version of Google Earth. This launch is particularly special to me because it marks the moment when Google Earth becomes much more complete — it now has an ocean. Didn't Google Earth always have an ocean? Technically, yes, well, sort of. We have always had a big blue expanse and some low-resolution shading to suggest depth. But starting today we have a much more detailed bathymetric map (the ocean floor), so you can actually drop below the surface and explore the nooks and crannies of the seafloor in 3D. While you're there you can explore thousands of data points including videos and images of ocean life, details on the best surf spots, logs of real ocean expeditions, and much more. We were joined at the Academy by many of the <a title="dozens of ocean scientists and advocates" href="http://earth.google.com/ocean/partners.html" id="wogf">dozens of ocean scientists and advocates</a> who helped make this project a reality: friends from National Geographic, the Monterey Bay Aquarium, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, the US Navy, Scripps Oceanography, and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, to name just a few. Above all, I would like to acknowledge the work of <a title="Sylvia Earle" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia_Earle" id="hl8s">Dr. Sylvia Earle</a>, who cornered me at a conference three years ago and told me that Google Earth was great but that it wasn't finished (you can read more about that encounter on the <a href="http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2009/02/deep-dive-into-ocean-in-google-earth.html">Lat Long blog</a>). As much as I hated to admit it, she was right. We on the Google Earth team had been working hard to build a rich 3D map of the world, but we had largely ignored the oceans — two thirds of the planet. Inspired by Sylvia, the team got to work. I hope you are as excited as I am to explore our new Ocean and all of the fascinating stories and images our partners have contributed. But that's not all we launched today. In addition to Ocean, we introduced new features that we hope will enhance the way people interact with Google Earth and use it to communicate with the world. <ul><li> Historical Imagery: Until today, Google Earth displayed only one image of a given place at a given time. With this new feature, you can now move back and forth in time to reveal imagery from years and even decades past, revealing changes over time. Try flying south of San Francisco in Google Earth and turning on the new time slider (click the "clock" icon in the toolbar) to witness the transformation of Silicon Valley from a farming community to the tech capital of the world over the past 50 years or so.</li></ul><ul><li>Touring: One of the key challenges we have faced in developing Google Earth has been making it easier for people to tell stories. People have created wonderful layers to share with the world, but they have often asked for a way to guide others through them. The Touring feature makes it simple to create an easily sharable, narrated, fly-through tour just by clicking the record button and navigating through your tour destinations.</li></ul><ul><li>3D Mars: This is the latest stop in our virtual tour of the galaxies, made possible by a collaboration with NASA. By selecting "Mars" from the toolbar in Google Earth, you can access a 3D map of the Red Planet featuring the latest high-resolution imagery, 3D terrain, and annotations showing landing sites and lots of other interesting features.</li></ul>For those of you who keep track of version numbers, this is <a href="http://earth.google.com/index.html">Google Earth 5.0</a>. We felt the addition of the ocean and "time" merited a major bump from 4.3 to 5.0 :-) Members of the Google Earth team will be publishing in-depth posts about all of the new features in Google Earth 5.0 on the <a href="http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/" id="ny8i" title="Lat Long blog">Lat Long blog</a> all week, so be sure to check back there often. And check out our video tour below. <object height="295" width="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/GSuJq4UzkIA&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/GSuJq4UzkIA&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="295" width="480"></embed></object> Posted by John Hanke, Director of Google Earth and Maps

Dive into the new Google Earth

As you read this, I am at the beautiful California Academy of Sciences , announcing the launch of the newest version of Google Earth. This ...

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"This site may harm your computer" on every search result?!?!

If you did a Google search between 6:30 a.m. PST and 7:25 a.m. PST this morning, you likely saw that the message "This site may harm your computer" accompanied each and every search result. This was clearly an error, and we are very sorry for the inconvenience caused to our users. What happened? Very simply, human error. Google flags search results with the message "This site may harm your computer" if the site is known to install malicious software in the background or otherwise surreptitiously. We do this to protect our users against visiting sites that could harm their computers. We maintain a list of such sites through both manual and automated methods. We work with a non-profit called <a href="http://stopbadware.org/">StopBadware.org</a> to come up with criteria for maintaining this list, and to provide simple processes for webmasters to remove their site from the list. We periodically update that list and released one such update to the site this morning. Unfortunately (and here's the human error), the URL of '/' was mistakenly checked in as a value to the file and '/' expands to all URLs. Fortunately, our on-call site reliability team found the problem quickly and reverted the file. Since we push these updates in a staggered and rolling fashion, the errors began appearing between 6:27 a.m. and 6:40 a.m. and began disappearing between 7:10 and 7:25 a.m., so the duration of the problem for any particular user was approximately 40 minutes. Thanks to our team for their quick work in finding this. And again, our apologies to any of you who were inconvenienced this morning, and to site owners whose pages were incorrectly labelled. We will carefully investigate this incident and put more robust file checks in place to prevent it from happening again. Thanks for your understanding. Update at 10:29 am PST: This post was revised as more precise information became available (changes are in blue). <a href="http://blog.stopbadware.org/2009/01/31/google-glitch-causes-confusion">Here's StopBadware's explanation</a>. Posted by Marissa Mayer, VP, Search Products & User Experience

"This site may harm your computer" on every search result?!?!

If you did a Google search between 6:30 a.m. PST and 7:25 a.m. PST this morning, you likely saw that the message "This site may harm yo...

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