I do wonder about this feature too, in the grand scheme of things. By providing instantaneous feedback on your search terms, it gently nudges and directs you in a way that is quite different from the previous query/results/repeat model of interacting with a search engine.
It’s a very subtle semantic shift, from “here is the list of results” to “here is the available path unfolding in front of you”, and I would be very interested to see the results of a study (and you know one is coming) that looks at the effect this has on which links users select.
Anyone remember this quote:
Quote:
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“I actually think most people don’t want Google to answer their questions. They want Google to tell them what they should be doing next.” He suggested, as an example, that because Google would know “roughly who you are, roughly what you care about, roughly who your friends are”, it could remind users what groceries they needed to buy when passing a shop.
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That’s from the CEO of Google.
I dunno.