SortFix Enriches User Experience Tom Whittaker

Check out SortFix.  It is a new search technology company that has created an interesting user interface on top Google and Yahoo search results.  It allows you to drag power words into your search or even exclude these search terms from the results.  I personally do not see myself using this, but it is a very interesting concept to me.  This is functionality that exists in Google today, however the average user probably does not know how to type into the search box of Google to do the same thing.

For example, if I search truck rental in Softfix, it comes up with results and shows power words such as long distance, apartment mover or self storage.  If these are items I want to further filter the results by, I just drag them to the add to search box and click search again.  If I dragged apartment moves, now my results are for truck rental apartment moves and in theory I should see more defined results of companies that rent trucks, but specialize in apartment moves.  Using the same principle, I could drag anything in the power words or my search string to the remove box and have that item excluded from my results.  For example, if I want to search truck rental but want all results that reference self storage removed, I can do that with a simple drag and drop.

 The interesting part for me with this search interface, is that they created something Google and Yahoo already offer, but as I said the average person does not know to get results on truck rental but remove all results with self storage all you need to enter in Google is truck rental -self -storage.  I personally think if Sortfix wants to be successful in the market, they should market toward elementary kids and create an automatic filter of results based on questionable content.  That mixed with the easy, user-friendly drag and drop search method would be a great interface for children.  Additionally, their site graphics and video with robots seem perfect for kids.

• Posted In Tom & Becki's Prom Stories