Scratch

Cool! The mockups look awesome.

What do you search for on the scratch website?
Sometimes if I want to see a certain project like one with pokemon. Sometimes if I hear a really cool song on the radio an want to listen to it again, I may search it.

Are there things you wish you could find more easily?
Maybe seperate the forum posts and the projects and comments because that can get a little difficult sometimes.

Do you have suggestions on how to improve search in Scratch?
Just have different parts for searching each section as I said above

Last edited by JJROCKER (2011-07-31 20:55:18)

jji7skyline wrote:

Some suggestions would be a larger search box...

D'oh! I shrank the search box down in my browser just to make the image fit the max-width of the blog. XD

Gaia's actual prototype is much wider - 650 pixels I think.

So I guess I'll just say - Good suggestion! We agree! And we've already fixed it. 

jji7skyline wrote:

Lightnin wrote:

jji7skyline wrote:

Some suggestions would be a larger search box...

D'oh! I shrank the search box down in my browser just to make the image fit the max-width of the blog. XD

Gaia's actual prototype is much wider - 650 pixels I think.

So I guess I'll just say - Good suggestion! We agree! And we've already fixed it. 

And also, when I type something like the letter a... a list comes up of previous searches. When I click on one of them, it should submit it automatically without me having to press enter or click the search button. It would be more convenient because most people are familiar with that kind of system (because google uses it). 

I like that idea and it made me think of another thing.

JJROCKER wrote:

How about as you type in, the most popular searches come up too?

Sounds good! But what if some of the search words are inappropriate? 

jji7skyline wrote:

JJROCKER wrote:

How about as you type in, the most popular searches come up too?

Sounds good! But what if some of the search words are inappropriate? 

then they can take them off.

Added a bit more to the blog post at the end, to reflect a list of features we're thinking about.

The very first mockup reminds me of an old LEGO.com design. The newer one looks like Google. I would like the search to not be a Google search, but that's just me.

The mock-ups look very interesting! Search is one of the most important things on the web, as well as here on the Scratch Website, since it is one of the most key tools in finding other projects, so its essential that we keep it as easy as possible to use.

The first mockup is quite interesting. It's easy to scan through to see what you want, and with the "more projects" buttons, you can go into the specific categories. It's sort of like a hub -- that's the best I can really explain it. But due to that hub-like nature, the odds are you're going to have to select one of the "more projects" areas to narrow down your search, which is overall slowing down your search time. In this way I think this mockup shows a direction that is not the way to go for search.

The second mockup is definitely better. As it resembles many features to Google's search engine, it matches what the experts are doing -- after all Google has a lot of experience. This is better in comparison to the previous example since if you're searching in the Scratch search engine, it is most likely assumed that you're looking for a project. That is not the only use, however I am guessing that that is the most common one. Thus, I think by default it should search for projects (just like Google searches for web pages), however depending on what the engine finds, if there are more forum or wiki or gallery pages on the topic, it will show a highlight of those, just like Google does. And just like the mockup, you can change your search to only forum topics or wiki articles or galleries (just like Google has with images and video).

One thing I dislike about this second mockup however is that it appears that you can immediately play the top searched result from the search engine. This brings up some questions. Will that search then count as a view for that project? That would be pretty unfair if you ask me. Even then, won't this make it less likely that the person will click on the link, if they can just play the project right there? I personally think adding thumbnail images next to the search results would be very useful (I believe there is a chrome extension that does that for google), however including the flash-player is not needed.

You also include some interesting questions at the end of your blog post. For example, should there be an advanced search? I think yes, since it could be useful just like how it is used on google. Certain features like searching on a certain website/domain or file type would not be included, but it would be useful to have an easy to use area where you input which words you would like to search for, which words you don't want to be included in your search, etc.

Also, should there be an instant search? I think this may be a useful tool, however it is really not needed, and very few websites even have it, so there's no definite answer.

I hope this post of mine provides some insight in your goal of making a better search engine for Scratch. 

cpumaster930 wrote:

I agree with most of Lucario's post, but I have a bit to add 

Lucario621 wrote:

One thing I dislike about this second mockup however is that it appears that you can immediately play the top searched result from the search engine. This brings up some questions. Will that search then count as a view for that project?

I could see a system working where there's sort of a preview for that project--mouse over the project and a 10-second preview plays in a loop--click the project and it brings you to the full project, and counts as a view.

This might require some effort to implement, but it would be cool if there was a screen-capture feature in Scratch. Let's say you have an action game that you want to showcase.  Perhaps you could record 20 seconds of the screen while you're playing your game, speed it up to 2x, and automatically export as a .gif which would display as the preview.

I'm not sure how much additional server space this would require, though, or if it would make the website lag.  I'm not really an expert in that area 

That's a cool idea! The only thing though is that I think this idea would work great for youtube since its just a video, however on Scratch it can be an animation, a game, etc. I definitely think your idea might over-complicating the process of uploading a project. Perhaps like a mini-slideshow of 3-4 images instead?

My idea: Maybe you should be able to look up top games  chosen by moderators if you search a genre. Like if you search scrolling adventure it will have really good scrolling games and if you search puzzles it will have really good puzzle games and so on...

my idea is if everybody likes collab camp so much there can be a partner up you can only choose up to 10 partners when you have your 10 partners or less you can start making a project together

scimonster wrote:

Gaia's looks a little like Google... I like that. 

Yeah, me too. We took some inspiration from them. After all, they're pretty good at search.