- Image via CrunchBase
It’s not even a month old, but I’ve already tired of Google Instant Search.
It’s not because I don’t like this new feature, I do, it’s what they’ve taken away or what I can’t do that I could before that really gets to me.
The first most annoying issue for me is the fact that they no longer have a search box at the bottom of the search results.
I’m sure Google spent plenty of time with their UX experts looking at all aspects on the page to see what elements were most important and I’m sure the search box at the bottom of the page wasn’t deemed to be one.
That is probably because most normal joe soaps don’t even go that far in the search results and therefore this feature wasn’t used as much. I used it a lot however and I really miss it.
The second most annoying aspect is a new feature. Being someone who rarely uses as mouse as I prefer to navigate with my keyboard I was dismayed to see the new feature that tabs through each search result when you use your “down” or “up” arrow on your keyboard. What that means is that I can no longer browse through through the search results as fast as I used to. It actually takes quite a bit longer to tab through each result on the search results page. I’ve no had to resort to using my mouse scroll wheel to do something I could do without my hands leaving the keyboard…
Google need to be careful that with their massive success they don’t forget the web savvy users who helped build their profile by making things less user friendly for them. They’ve clearly chosen UX features that suit the less computer savvy masses, which is fair enough, but some things didn’t need to be removed, it wasn’t as if they have added any value in their place.

#1 by Lenin at November 4th, 2010
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Right on!
#2 by TheBozzMan at October 13th, 2011
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The keyboard thing drove me crazy too. I can’t believe its being going this long and Google still haven’t taken the hint.
At the very least a querystring value to switch it off so that those who know can add it to their favourites and search bars should have been created by now.
I hate it so much that I’ve now written three blog posts about it and counting.
Hear’s a couple of them. See what you think. There’s a few arguments in there that might be of interest:
– http://thebozzman.wordpress.com/2011/01/31/i-hate-google-instant/
– http://thebozzman.wordpress.com/2011/10/08/google-instant-vs-internet-explorer/