More feedback on No Results page…

Looks like the usability folks like our no-results page:

• When Mahalo doesn’t have hand-written results for a query (which happens quite often since the site is still very much under construction) it returns a tabbed user interface that provides access to results from other “search engines” like Google, Delicious, YouTube and Flickr.

  Try typing in “etre’s usability newsletter” (or just click on this link) to see the “no results” page in action.

  While some people will no doubt slate Mahalo for driving business to its competitors, we think its great. Why? Because by providing alternative lines of enquiry, it prevents users from running into brick walls. It shuns the “walled garden” approach of most websites in favour of actually helping people (shock, horror). It also mimics the equivalen offline scenariot: When I find that a store I’m visiting doesn’t have the product I want, the first question I always ask is “Do you know anyone else that might stock it?”