Our paper prototype was designed around the idea that searchme.com has a cluttered hard to navigate layout which hides alot of very useful features. So my question is did our groups’ redesign of the layout of searchme.com help users find what they are looking for in a easier and more pleasing way?
The way the site is curently designed it is very unclear where are the features that make the site unique are. For example, in order to view the magnifying glass to enlarge a visual snapshot of a search result the user would need to hover over the picture until a screen pops up. Then they would have to find the magnifying glass (a tiny button near the top of the pop up without a text caption). We simplified this by creating a drag window would could be moved to increace the size of the pictures and decrease the size of the text, and vice versa.
My making things clearly labled and reducing clutter we believe our design is as simple and effective as visual search can be. We will find out how our users felt on Tuesday when we analyze our paper prototypes in class.
