Find Products by Appearance with Like Visual Search

Posted by Ellen

November 8, 2006

If you love shopping, especially designer shopping, here is a search engine for us fasionistas! Like is an search engine that helps users find products using visual clues to likeness of items. Does this sound confusing? Well, it’s not, it’s pure genius.

So, how does Like work? You can start your search in 3 ways:

Text based – enter in a description of an item you are looking for.
Browse by type – right now you are limited to browsing by jewelry, handbags, shoes and watches. Clothing will be the next followed by other “aesthetically oriented product categories.”
Click on a celebrity – find items by what current celebrities are wearing. Again, this area will be expanded on over time.

The best way to describe the Like search is to walk you through a search I did. When I was out to dinner the other night I saw a woman wearing a pair of boots I fell in love with and they were pointed-toe and flat-heeled. So, I started off with a text search for flat, pointed-toe boots.

The following image shows a series of boots that were returned for my query (that search is the right hand side of the screen). I clicked on the boot that was closest to what I was looking for, in this case right near the top of the search (that boot is shown on the left side of the screen). Then I started the second step of my search, called a “Likeness Search”, where I was able to select the area of the boot of most interest to me. It happened to be the bottom of the boot, so I drew a box around it and then was asked if color, shape or both was more important to me. I selected shape. (Click on the image to enlarge.)

Lastly, I was given options on the left hand side of the screen to narrow my search down farther including color, price, brands, sites, function and type. I found the boots I want by Gabriella Rocha and carried at Zappos. Like gives me the price and links to Zappos so that I can buy at will.

Like made my searching easier than using Google’s shopping search, Froogle. I was able to visualize my search and refine it easier than on Froogle. I had more relevant results with Like and I liked that.

An exciting feature that Like plans to incorporate is the ability to upload your own photo of your favorite item and find similar products. I can see me saving photos from entertainment or magazine sites to upload to Like.

A couple of improvements I would like to see are

The ability to select multiple options before the search is refined. Right now it only lets you select one at a time, refining the search each time. This took time and I could see the different options I wanted to select.
I would love an area where it saved my previous searches. The ability to register and save searches would be a great feature.

I give Like a thumbs up and can’t wait for the image uploader. I recommend you go check it out and enjoy visually searching for your next fashion item.

Ellen

tags: Like, visual search, search engine, fashion, celebrities, shopping