See the announcement here: Focus Search Page
It would great if you could try it out and give us any feedback, especially before we announce it more widely, on Thursday.
I love the positioning right beside the other search features. Makes it so much easier to use Focus. Here are 2 thoughts. I don’t know if you’ll do something with them, but I’m sure you’ll be perfectly capable of figuring that out for yourself.
- I’m doubting that the info provided on what Focus is, would be enough as explanation on what Focus is for people that just found it. When I scroll down 1 VH (or how should I describe it), I see 3 USP’s/features of Focus but none of them explain the main feature (that you can define what sites to search). The tagline “Search the web you want.” is also very descriptive. So I just wonder if people who just find it for the first time will instantly understand what it is. It is explained further on the page but the general people don’t scroll (a lot), so will they find the explanation? This could be just me, though.
- There are a few premade Focus options available. They are not explained, so I wouldn’t directly use any of them because it’s hard to find what they are. I’d have to do a search > focus dropdown > edit > enable them one by one > open them one by one to see the websites included. That’s a lot of clicking to find out what I can do with a button on the landing page. I was thinking that perhaps you could have an overview of the searched sites. Perhaps in on the SERP where the focus is active? Or have a small description/site overview of the premade Focus options on the landing page (so I can see what it is before using)?
Hopefully these thoughts are useful.
2 Likes
Great points. We should address both. Many thanks.
I expect to see my custom Focus among the /focus options.
It might not be clear how to begin a search. For example, if I click the magnifying glass or press Enter on my keyboard, nothing happens. And there is no obvious prompt.
I also agree that people new to Focus cannot quickly discover what Focus is after reading a sentence/paragraph/video.
It might be useful to provide two parallel explanations: one focusing on convenience, and one focusing on search bubbles for more advanced users.
2 Likes
I’m sorry to say that as long as there isn’t a way to sync focus settings over multiple devices (eg. like DDG does), it won’t be a practical feature for me, as I have 3 devices I work on.
2 Likes