Search is getting more visual. Today, Google is adding universal search elements to Google Suggest, the drop-down list of suggested keywords that appear under the search box as you type. Now you may find suggestion box filled with results from universal search, which may include weather, flight status, definitions, calculations, currency conversions, and more. Universal results tend to have a visual component, such as the sun-and-cloud icons that appear for weather-related searches or the clock for time-related searches.
Google says it is all about making search even faster. It is also releasing a new extension for Chrome called Quick Scroll which helps you find the part of a web page that triggered a search result. So when you do a search and then click through to a results page, a black box pops up in the lower right-hand corner of the screen which will take you exactly to the place on the page which most closely matches your search query. Once again, this is designed to get you to the information you are looking for faster rather than just using the “find” function in your browser.
Google engineers Ruth Dhanaraj & Matias Pelenur explain in a post:
Like Google Search, Quick Scroll analyzes things like proximity, prominence and position of the words to identify the most relevant content. You can think of it like a personal assistant who reads webpages before you do and highlights the parts you might want to read. If several sections of the page have useful content, Quick Scroll will show you multiple text excerpts from different portions of the page and you can click on any of them to scroll to that specific section.
Search Everywhere, so to speak.
