Using Google while conducting searches on your mobile will now make for a better visual experience as the company has launched a new format for Search: rich cards.
The new rich cards search format from Google will basically showcase the visual results in a card-like format, like a carousel. The rich cards allow users to scroll through the cards.
Introduced on May 17, rich cards are aimed at enhancing the Search experience on the mobile platform. Moreover, the new format is looking to further develop the existing rich snippets format from the company.
For the unfamiliar, rich snippets basically show off the image, as well a summary of the information below the regular results. Both the rich snippets and the new rich cards deploy Schema.org to enhance the results. The rich cards are designed in a manner to make them more suitable for mobile device search.
"Rich cards are a new Search result format building on the success of rich snippets. Just like rich snippets, rich cards use schema.org structured markup to display content in an even more engaging and visual format, with a focus on providing a better mobile user experience," notes Googles.
The search results are shown in the movable carousel format horizontally. Users can scroll the results left or right, and even scroll up to see more carousels. Each carousel can have cards for a particular site or several sites.
Initially, Google is pushing out rich cards for two categories of content, namely movies and recipes.
The search results will appear only in English for now for mobile searches. Google has revealed that it is "actively experimenting" with more methods of extending the feature publishers' way.
The company asserts that it has developed a wide-ranging tool set, as well as updated its developer documentation, to help both developers and site owners transition from preliminary exploration to application to performance monitoring.
Google is optimistic that the rich cards format will enable site owners to get noticed in the crowd, in the Search results space. This will enable them to lure more target users. Search users will also benefit as the rich cards offer a more pictorial format, which will aid them in finding the requisite information quicker.
Whether rich cards are successful in meeting Google's goal of simplifying search on mobile devices - and making googling more visual - remains to be seen.
