Mahalo's "no results" page 23 Nov 2007

Mahalo - the search engine where results are supplied by humans - released a new "no results" page earlier in the week and it's well worth a look.

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 equivalent offline scenario: 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?"