Microsoft is testing a new visual search engine called Tafiti.

Microsoft has launched a test version of a new search engine that should bring tears to the eyes of librarians, as it is based on the metaphor of a library desktop.

Search engine expert Phil Bradely is not amused, however: “Microsoft are experimenting again, this time with a thing called tafiti. Apparently Swahili for ‘yet another search engine that no-one wants or needs’ or some such.”

Actually Tafiti is Swahili. It means “to do research”.

You have to install Silverlight to make use of it. According to Microsoft Silverlight is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of .NET based media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web. You could call it a type of advanced Ajax.

It is a very visually advanced search engine. it gives you a catalog card for a search box and you can save results on glass shelves. You can gather results in stacks and label them.

There is also a tree view that organizes results into visual clusters (branches). The tree is clearly inspired by Kartoo.

“Irritatingly, this tree like affair spins around,” Bradley reports, “slowly and dizzyingly and made me feel quite ill.” Maybe we’ll get used to it.

You can adjust how many results are show using a slider bar located beneath the tree.

Google Blogoscoped is not too enthusiastic either:

“If you’re looking for a search engine that requires a plug-in, disables your back button, won’t allow you to right-click URLs to copy them, needs pop-ups enabled, and doesn’t let you use your mouse wheel to scroll, look no further than Tafiti.”

All right, we found it a bit troublesome as well. It is full of bugs and may crash your browser.

However, this is a beta, and we would like to give Microsoft credit for thinking outside the box, and experimenting with the new opportunities new web technologies can give them. We like the aesthetic aspect of the design.

This is not the first visually enhanced search engine from Microsoft. However, its controversial Ms. Dewey search engine is probably less practical than Tafiti.

Tafiti supports Windows Vista and Windows XP SP2, including Microsoft Internet Explorer 6, Windows Internet Explorer 7, Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.8, and Firefox 2.0.x. On Apple Mac OS X you may use Firefox 1.5.0.8, Firefox 2.0.x, and Apple Safari 2.0.4.