Google announced today that it is adding some improvements to some of the quick answers-style search results it gives users, across a variety of subject areas.
“Today when you search on mobile or tablet, you’ll see some more improvements in the way we provide these quick answers, including better understanding what information you need and surfacing the most relevant information for you,” says Google User Experience Designer Jeromy Henry. “For example, in our flight status quick answer, we’ve included a flight progress indicator and increased the size of arrival and departure times so you can quickly see when your loved ones will be landing.”
“Other quick answer features we’re updating on mobile and tablet cover finance, currency conversion, unit conversion, dictionary definitions, local time lookup, and holiday and sunrise times,” adds Henry. “In all these quick answers we’ve simplified the experience so you can focus on the answer you were looking for. For example, for unit conversions the answer is displayed prominently for a question like [how many miles are 42 kilometers]. If you’d like to convert another unit of measure like [how many yards in a mile], you can simply tap the card and see the full unit converter right there.”
Google says the changes are rolling out to Google.com in English on mobile and tablets.
Google announced the changes on its Inside Search blog – the first announcement here since the addition of handwriting as a search option for mobile. Typically, Google posts monthly lists of search algorithm changes to the blog, but has so far not posted any such list for the past two months.