Microsoft has introduced a new design for its Bing search, the new design has a clean UI along with a Social Search sidebar. Earlier this month Bing redesigned its search UI by getting rid of left navigation bar and cleaned the header, now comes the next part of the redesign with social signals right into the search, the new design will roll out in the coming weeks to the users of United States.
Bing says they are introducing “brand new way to search designed to help you take action and interact with friends and experts without compromising the core search experience.” The new design will have three columns, the first column with traditional search results, the second column with snapshots related search results, and the final third column will include a social sidebar.
The first column will show show the core search results with out any social clutter. Google is mixing search results with social results mainly from Google+, Google has been criticized for this by many. But Bing has taken a different approach to separate social search to a sidebar with out cluttering the main search results.
Snapshot sits right in the middle column between main search results and sidebar, this will give useful information depending on the user query. Snapshot brings relevant information and services like maps and restaurant reservations when your search query matches with these services. Bing is working with OpenTable, FanSnap etc. to bring this information.
Sidebar is in the right and off by default, you can interact with it when you want to get help from your friends. Using the sidebar “you can post a question to get help from your Facebook friends as you search. You can “tag” friends Bing suggests might know about the topic. In a few simple clicks you can share your search and your friends can reply to your question on either Facebook or Bing.” according to Bing. Not only Facebook friends but Bing will include experts and friends from other social sites like Twitter, Foursquare, Quora, LinkedIn, Google+ and Blogger.
Google used to include Twitter results in the search some time back but that contract expired and Google didn’t renewed the contract and removed the Twitter search results, now it only includes information that is shared on Google+.
The new design is not yet rolled out users, it will be rolled out in the coming weeks for users in the United States, if you want to get notified when it launches for you, you can sign-up here. Via Techmeme