Become a Google Usability Tester

User research studies help us improve Google products by allowing us to get feedback directly from our users (that's you!)

During a study we may present you with and gather your feedback on an existing product, a new feature, or even prototypes. We may also interview you about particular daily habits or ask you to keep a log of certain activity types over a given period of time. Study sessions can happen at a Google office, in your home or business, or online through your computer or mobile device. Afterwards, you'll receive a token of our appreciation for your cooperation. Sharing your experiences with us helps inform our product planning and moves us closer to our goal of building something you'll love.

You don't have to be a Google product user or a tech aficionado to sign up

We value input from people that are unfamiliar with our products or the latest web technology, as well as those who are deeply engaged with them. If you've used the Internet in any way before, we want to hear from you!

Getting invited

When you sign up to participate in user studies, we'll use the information you provide to help us search for suitable participants for user studies. We (or an outside agency working on our behalf in accordance with our privacy policy) will only contact you if we want to invite you to participate in a study or need to clarify information that informs such invitations.

Read all the details & sign up @ Google.com/usability.

Some changes to the results page

We've increased the size of result titles, removed the underlines, and evened out all the line heights. This improves readability and creates an overall cleaner look. We've also brought over our new ad labels from mobile, making the multi-device experience more consistent.

Read the full post on Google+.

New format for Google Alert e-mails

Google has recently re-formatted the display of results in Google Alert e-mails. Specifically, notice the addition of social network sharing buttons. So, please consider this an update of figure 11.3.

Google Gives More Prominence to First Playable Music Video Search Result

Searching for a music video on Google? Maybe "Locked Out of Heaven" by Bruno Mars or "Get Lucky" by Daft Punk? Now Google is using the space above its organic search results to give more prominence to the top playable music video result.

Say you search for [daft punk get lucky], you'll see this:

Though it looks like you should be able to play it straight from the search results, clicking on the giant thumbnail won't actually play the video. Rather, clicking takes you to YouTube to view the video. Below the video, Google also links to searches for the artist and the album on which the song you've searched for appears.

While it doesn't have to be an "official" music video, Google seems to be pulling these videos from official artist channels the majority of the time, though it isn't perfect.

Read the full post @ Search Engine Watch.

11 Most Important Google Search Algorithm Updates/Changes in 2013

Generally this sort of thing has greater implications to the SEO crowd, but any change to the algorithm will have an impact on the type of search results you'll receive.

Source: e2msolutions.com

Google Image Search Usage Rights Filter Now Front and Center

Since 2009, filtering by usage rights has been a part of the Advanced Search when doing a Google Image search. Recently, that feature was made more prominent - it's now available under the Search Tools option after you've done an image search.

Find Unadvertised Job Openings with a Clever Google Search

In the Google search below, I am asking Google to look only on the Taleo.net website (where their system hosts various unadvertised jobs that are typically obtainable when a jobseeker does a search on a company’s careers website). I do this when I search: “site:taleo.net” Afterward, I ask Google to find only those webpages that have “careers” in the title. This is what “intitle:careers” means. Finally, I add in the job title “programmer” because that is the job I am looking for. Of course, just adding a job title is giving me too many broad results. I narrow it down by adding more keywords like “SAS” and “macro.”

Read the full article @ Lifehacker.com.