Google Accessible Search

A search engine for the visually challenged was released as a Labs project today.  When I read the name of this service (Google Accessible Search) for the first time, I thought maybe they would format their search result pages differently to make it easier for people to see -- not really.

The result pages are only slightly less cluttered as Philipp Lenssen mentions, but that's not the point of the service.  The actual results (the pages they link to) are ranked with visibly challenged individuals in mind -- basically creating a more accessible web specifically for this group of people.

"I wrote a small tool to compare Accessible Search results to those of Web Search. (You don’t need to go to the Google Labs page, you can also append “&cx=accessible%21” to a normal web search result, which is what I did here.) For example, when you search for fun, the first normal Google result is funbrain.com, and the second is funtrivia.com. The same search with the accessible option activated however doesn’t show either of the two sites in the top 10; instead, ibiblio.org/Dave/ ranks top. And indeed, funbrain.com is more “crowded” and image heavy that the Ibiblio page." -- Philipp Lenssen

Even if some non-visually friendly sights make it through, at least people who need it can rest easy knowing the results are for them.