Microsoft recently launched a revamped version of its Bing search engine with some significant changes and new features. As a regular Bing user, I decided to take the new version for a spin and jot down my first impressions.
Cleaner, More Modern Design
The most immediately noticeable change is the cleaner, more modern look and feel. Microsoft has really streamlined the interface to focus on the search box and results.
- The search box is now larger and front and center on the page.
- The results page has more whitespace and is less cluttered overall.
- Microsoft moved secondary options like Images, Videos, Maps, etc into a slide out menu on the left. This helps simplify the main interface.
- The results themselves have slightly larger and more readable fonts.
- Overall, the new design looks great and feels more intuitive to use. It’s a big aesthetic upgrade.
New Sidebar for Related Searches
One innovative new feature is the sidebar that now appears alongside search results.
- The sidebar shows related searches and topics to explore based on your original query.
- For example, searching for “Microsoft” shows related searches for Office, Windows, and Xbox in a handy sidebar.
- This should make it much easier to refine searches and dig deeper into topics.
- The sidebar almost acts like an automatic recommendations engine for search. It’s very smart.
Enhanced Visual Search Capabilities
Bing is really trying to enhance visual aspects of search with the redesign.
- There is a new visual search button in the main search bar that lets you upload or search images.
- Bing can now identify objects in photos to provide contextual information.
- ForRecognizing visual concepts in searches and images allows for a more semantic search experience. This has a lot of potential.
- I’m looking forward to testing out the new visual search features more.
Initial Verdict: Promising Updates
Overall, my first impressions of the new Bing are very positive. At a high level, the cleaner look and feel combined with smart touches like the related search sidebar make search more intuitive and useful. This feels like an attempt by Microsoft to modernize Bing for the visual, semantic era of search. I’m excited to see where they take Bing in the future, but the new version offers a promising start.
