BANGALORE, INDIA: Google Instant saves between 2-5 seconds on typical searches, however ever thought how much it might burden the metro by throwing up 'instant' results for each word? Maybe we are over anticipating and this is not the case. Vinay Goel, Head of products Google India, explains us how it works. Excerpts:

CIOL: How can Google deliver a non-stop stream of instant results without cluttering the Internet?

Vinay Goel: Though we do not anticipate Instant slowing home Internet connections, we do plan to automatically turn off Google Instant for users on very slow connections.

Also Read: What went behind Google Instant

Users always have the option to turn Instant on or off. Even though we are serving more search results pages, the additional load this enhancement creates is very small when compared to other types of popular web services such as streaming video and online gaming.

We’ve also worked hard to minimize the amount of data that is sent and received during the search process. For example, when rendering new search results as people type, we only send the parts of the page that change without updating the static elements, such as a the page frame around the results.

Also Read: Google Instant Blacklist: What is it?

CIOL: How do you know whether or not you are cluttering the search page with all these new features? How do you keep a track of how people are accepting it?
 
VG: At Google, a principle we follow in product design is to "launch and iterate" and that means we're constantly working to improve all of our products. Whether it's the back-end technology or the user-facing design, we're constantly working to improve search.

We've conducted extensive tests of the new interface with millions of users, and we've found that over time it does make finding information faster and easier. This is particularly true for those who choose to refine their searches because the new design makes search tools more readily accessible in the left-hand panel.

Also Read: Google Instant won't effect SEO, user behaviour

With the roll-out of Google Instant, we’ve made several changes to our homepage to create a more seamless experience. The changes include moving the advanced search and language tools links to beneath the search, removing the fading effect and increasing the size of the logo.

Since users can get to the top search result with only one click, we’ve also moved the “I’m Feeling Lucky” feature to be part of Google Autocomplete. 

For Instant to work well, we needed to create a more seamless user experience between the homepage and the results page. With our updated homepage design, the key interface elements are perfectly in line on the homepage and results page, which allows these elements to simply slide up from the center of the page to the top.