go to incongnito/private mode to get personalisation out of the way (I don't think that this makes a difference, in this case, but who knows!)

Search for hybrid car, ignore the privacy reminder as that's just because of private mode.

I get 4 ads. On the right there is an information bubble with images, a wikipedia snippit and four alternative searches.

The highlighted result is off the page on my browser - I have to scroll for it, it's a summary from "car magazine". Then there are four lines of "people also ask" and then the organic results start.

Notice, I have missed out the icons on the search bar, the menu bar of search controls and the report of the number of results and search engine performance (does anyone really need to know that google can do this search in 0.85s? Isn't that debate done?) And most confusingly the switch between the browser bar and the search bubble - your search is mystically teleported from one place on the screen to another, a violation of interface that floors children instantly.

Now - imagine you are explaining this to a six year old (the layout of the page). I have done this, and I was met (unsurprisingly) by blank incomprehension. I have previously explained (conceptually!) Newtonian Calculus to said six year old, and she got it (I'm not so sure I do, but there you go). We (the informationartiieee) filter this out, screen these complexities and dodge and weave through the spaghetti that modern google is (do you remember geocities, old yahoo?)

Now, we are not even in the zone of how do we frame the queries, how do we cross check, how do we explore further (although google is trying to prompt us/me for that) but the fundamental is that google is trying to be many things at once; it's trying to provide a console onto this topic, it's trying to provide shopping advice, it's trying to summarise so that we don't click further (is that good?) it's trying to prompt for other searches (which I posit is a self fulfilling prophesy), what it is not doing is delivering a kids encyclopedia or providing a diverse interface to a plurality of different types of information sources.

I can contrast this with a tool that google provides that I know that six year olds do and can use - google maps. They can find places and use "the little red man" to locate themselves and see what's where they are exploring. Hardly any explaining is needed.

Now there are a lot of queries where Google reverts to a more "information only mode", for example "where do butterflies come from" but this is another point - google's behaviour is wildly inconsistent, these variations are fine for you and me and our friends, but they are not for six year olds, or nine year olds (my experience is limited here).

I really find it interesting that it is a fact that the people at google haven't even made a tool that their families might need or can use. I am a technical person, and my family are pretty well smack in the google demographic, so I don't know what that reveals about how useful the tool is for people who are not like me an google people... but I suspect that it's pretty indicative that it just isn't as useful for many, many people as it really should be.