Yandex

Images Search

Images search is an essential part of the web search of Yandex. Working on this kind of important service requires a lot of researches, experiments, and trials and errors to create something that could solve the problems of millions of people daily.

I succeeded to create a very multifunctional yet simple to use images search that works equally well on desktop and mobile platforms.

User interface elements of web search are always tested on small amounts of visitors to prove its effectiveness before releasing it to everyone. Design variants may be anything from conservative to eccentric. For example, these interface elements below we called “polaroids” which appear when you hover the mouse cursor over a picture in search results.

Most common use cases don't seem difficult at first glance but in fact, are packed with functions and content of different type and meta-properties that is processed with insanely complex search system algorithms. That is always must be kept in mind while working on these use cases. An image in a gallery could be just a file on a web page, or an object containing wiki data or even a real-world thing you can buy. The user interface of images search changes depending on a case.

Images search is not only a tool but also is an entertainment place. Our team made a project called “Picture of the Day”. Everyday photographers and artists from around the country contributed their work to the main page of the service, including a little story of a specific picture. That picture could be downloaded and used as a wallpaper.

We collaborated with photo services like “500px”, companies like “Coca-Cola” and “Russian Geographic Society”, and — what I am personally proud of — scientific expedition “Aquatilis” who provided underwater fauna pictures for the enjoyment of millions of people.

Below are some interface elements which help to measure Net Promoter Score of images search.

Mobile Images Search

One of the most important parts of work were interfaces for growing mobile platforms. These interfaces required to experiment more than usual. During my work, I was making partly-functional prototypes like these animated tutorials (these specific ones were just HTML and CSS).

Mobile images search interfaces praised unique scenarios like taking a picture to detect objects on it. Or translating a text from a pic.

Sometimes we needed to peek into the future and make explorations in mobile user interactions.

Cloud Storage Plans

Yandex Webmaster Dashboard

Mobile search app concept. All the navigation is made with a single but powerful voice/text search field that understands the context of what you are talking.

Experimental Projects

A visual game that helps the search system to learn better what is displayed at pictures. This experimental game rewards the user with a score that might be shared in social networks to gain even more respondents.

Along with experiments I designed mobile search result improvements for different kinds of queries like “books“ or “translate”.

I also made some intranet things for Yandex. For example, achievements that employees can get for participating in certain projects.

Thanks to all my ex-colleagues for the fun times and great experience they shared with me!

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