Junfo Interface
Located in Web Design
The Junfo user interface was a very challenging thing to design because it needed to do so much and have the ability to do even more. To date it is the most comprehensive user interface for web searching I have scene and being an individual who spends much of his time doing web based research I wish this site had gone into production.
The Concept:
The idea was to start out simple and then allow the user to figure out how complex he wanted his search returns to be. Most search engines treat everyone the same and for some people it comes off to complex while to others it does not offer an interface that allows the type of search returns that are useful. So lets dig into the design…
Landing page:
One of the things Google does very well is to greet the end-user with a simple landing page. No adds. No crazy boxes. Simple. Clean. So I took that idea to allow people to not feel over whelmed by the interface when it was turned on. As soon as the user type in a search return and hit submit he was down the rabbit hole and we didn’t want anything to keep them from jumping in. The trick is to get the user to use it and with this landing page there is no reason not to try it out. Regardless of what the returns look like the user is already invested because they are getting search returns to something that interests them.
The Rabbit Hole:
Unlike Google this site was more of an api and did not hold any information in a database. This was required to keep from infringing on copyright holders because we were only offering a tool to better structure search returns offered from other sites.
Unfortunately this process takes time but through DOM we were able to conceive of a method to allow for certain returns to start showing up in a way that seemed exciting and useful to the end-user.
DOM cells:
The site was composed of two major DOM types and a third smaller object that where presented in 3 columns. The main section would present the most searched types of returns. The center cells would offer more returns and structure them in a more readily digestible way. The right cells were for other types of returns that are not searched as often but still might be useful to the end-user and finally the left column was to offer web link social networking and site interface tools.
Cell Placement:
The point of the site was to allow the users to structure the layouts as they desired. The DOMs would be drag able and place able to any other part of the site allowing for an unending variety of site layouts.
Cell Search:
Each cell could be its own independent search return box allowing the user to compare search returns with in the same page. You could also use the setting elements to tell the engine how you wanted the search string to be applied to this box.
Ajax:
Using asynchronous javascript we were going to allow each cell to refresh independent of the page so the user could refine the search in one box without affecting other cells on the page.
Login:
The end-user could log in to have a wider range of user setting options. The user could interact with other users on the junfonation social network where users could do link sharing right in the search window. Since this offered user based rating systems it would also offer the best search returns to the end-user.
The user could also save page layouts and search criteria for the site and quickly turn them on and off within the user interface panel.
Tutorials:
With the advent of web screen recording we would have offered a large database of tutorials on how to best utilize the system.
Sponsors:
In order to fund the site we would offer sponsored returns in a number of the boxes in the format that is being offer. Ie: If the location map was being used and someone was searching for pizza the sponsored adds would appear at the top of the list and in the map with different colored location pins.
What happen:
There was much more to the concept but as stated before the funding was just to difficult to come by as the process would require a tremendous amount of work with a specialty team to ensure the site was highly optimized and gave the correct returns in a timely fashion. Nonetheless I did enjoy conceiving the user interface and UX of the site and look forward to similar projects in the future. This project is still open.


