Demonstration: Enhanced Thumbnails for Web Search

This demo is a re-creation of the user tests conducted by the research staff, comparing Enhanced Thumbnails to more traditional methods of displaying search results. Study participants were given a set of information-finding tasks to be done using a search engine. Their search results were displayed using text, plain thumbnails, and Enhanced Thumbnails.

The following examples show the information-finding tasks and the keywords entered into a search engine to find that information. Try the examples for yourself by clicking "search" to see the Enhanced Thumbnails search results.

Find at least three side-effects of Halcion.

Find Joe Hellerstein's home page.

Find the mileage of a hybrid (gas and electric) car.

The study showed that people using Enhanced Thumbnails found the answers to their queries 29% faster than when they used text summaries, and 22% faster than when they used plain thumbnails.

Return to Enhanced Thumbnails Introduction