Arabic search engines…a review…Part Trois
In my final post (till I can be bothered again) about search engines, Yamli is our star of this post.
I don’t really consider Yamli as being a search engine (calm down) it is a transliteration service, making it easy for users who do not type in Arabic or have an Arabic enabled keyboard to search using GOOGLE.
It is what Google (and ALL Arabic search engines) missed!
Yamli’s service is; useful, usable, desirable, accessible, credible, findable and valuable (honeycomb anyone?)
People need to innovate, all I see around the Arabic web are cheap imitations (except a few, ikbis for example) and this is where Yamli really sets the difference and demonstrates an originality in the thinking, concept and offering something that is missing.
Anyways off to the interface…
Nothing major in the interface, focus is on the search (of course), search button in the middle, tabs, easy and straight to the point.
One thing I didn’t get (maybe it’s just me) is what they mean by “… and get all the results” that needs to be clarified or re-written. (all doesn’t refer to all categories…)
Yamli took the “smart Arabic keyboard” further and offered an editor for long texts (I have to send a few emails in Arabic and it would be a pain to type a whole email in the search box!)
Yamli saves the day (and time/frustration and a few curses)
What’s really interesting and shows that the folks behind Yamli are paying attention to small details is the way they notify you about the editor, you have the classic icon with a link to the editor, and the nice touch, the notification you get when you type a long query in the search box.
KABOOM! (do you want to write a longer text? use the Yamli Editor)
These are the kind of things that makes me smile as a UX geek, they are not only making things easier for the user but they are also promoting another service in a way. I heart Yamli for that!
That’s basically a quick review of the interface.
Unlike other search engines (Arabic of course) Yamli makes it easy for users to integrate its API on their website/forum/whatever with a step by step guide and very detailed explanation, it really is easy.
What really shows the extra care and that extra mile that makes the whole difference is that the “Yamlians” did their research and homework perfectly. Images are provided by Bing (better than Google’s), videos by Youtube, Web by Google, Wikipedia by Google (huh?) and best of all, images and videos are categorized. Kudos to the Yamlians!
Search results wise, can’t complain, it’s Google and Bing (for the images) and that beats any given Arabic search engine for the time being.
That’s about it for the search (yup I am just too lazy) as for the editor, it has the basic functions that should be there , save print copy clear, nothing fancy, straight to the point and it does what it’s supposed to do. My only recommendation would be hiding the instruction box automatically faster when the user starts typing in the editor.
There you have it folks, Yamli and its goodies, make sure you download the Firefox add-on.
A great search engine (Google), a powerful browser (Firefox), the magician (Yamli), Arabic is no longer a problem or a hurdle online.
My top wishlist, Arabic for Mac applications and mobile applications.
Links
I give credit to Yamli. However, ajnad.com is far superior and more accurate. Try any word at http://www.ajnad.com and compare. Still, good luck to both players..
I would’ve loved to review it and compare them side by side, here’s my take on it
http://www.uxsoup.com/ajnad-far-superior-and-more-accurate-than-yamli-errrmmm/