Active Answers: Microsoft tests new interactive search results

A small feature added to Microsoft's Live Search engine this week is the first step in a new effort by the company to make its search results more interactive and useful. Typing "flight status" into the search field now brings back not only links but also a second set of search boxes that prompts users to enter an airline name and flight number to see the status of a specific flight.

Microsoft calls the concept "Active Answers." The idea isn't new. But Microsoft is breathing new life into the concept and looking to roll out additional features that make use of "Active Answers" fields.

"We’re playing with differerent ideas like this," said Irving Kwong, a Live Search product management director. He declined to go into detail on possible future applications but explained that the idea is to increase the level of interaction with the results page, and make it easier for people to get the information they need.

To be sure, this isn't exactly a Google killer. Microsoft's search market share recently hit a new low in the U.S., and the company will need to do much more if it wants to reverse that trend. But it is one example of how Microsoft is continuing to tweak its approach in an effort to differentiate Live Search results pages.

Google has also implemented interactive search results, introducing a similar feature for booking flights four years ago, for example.

There is a risk of going too far with the Active Answers concept. If the search engine misinterprets a query as appropriate for an Active Answers box, when it's really not, that risks decreasing the relevance of the results overall. As a result, Microsoft is being selective with the Active Answers features it rolls out, to avoid those types of false positives, Kwong said.

After users type "flight status," entering the airline and flight in the Active Answers boxes takes them to another results page, with up-to-date flight information in a neatly packaged module at the top. That part of the process is called "Instant Answers," and the company has been doing that for a while, with NCAA Tournament results and the Oscars, among other subjects.

With the new Live Search flight status feature, it's also possible for users to get directly to the flight status Instant Answers module -- without first bringing up the specialized Active Answers search fields -- by simply typing the airline name and flight number into the main search box. But the Active Answers step is meant to help people who don't know to do that.

READ MORE and COMMENT, ... http://link.gs/1qSR