Light Iris for light-weight searchers

Light Iris is a recently launched search engine for new moms. Before it launched, when all we could see was the blog of the founder, we were intrigued because he is a man wearing a pregnancy belly in order to gain empathy for pregnant women. He has kids already, so he and Whitney were in the same sisterhood of being pregnant while caring for someone else. Now, with the search function available to the public, our attention has turned to the utility of the site.

We were both immediately irritated when typing in LightIris.com because there is a flash intro. Here’s hoping this is not a long term design decision for Light Iris. The last thing we want to do when searching is wait for a branding message to flash and dance around. This is why Google is so popular. No. Frills. Search engines need flash intros like a fish needs a bicycle. And speaking of Google, the Light Iris engine IS Google, but the search results are limited to parenting sites. Here’s where the value lies, according to its founder.

You can all guess what kind of results you might get if your Google search includes the word “nipples”. On Light Iris, however, the results will be relevant only to parenting-related sites that mention nipples, hopefully closer to what you are looking for than a site dedicated to Lindsay Lohan’s nipples.

For us, it is hard to see the true value of this, because we typically use multiple words in searches so that they are not ambivalent. Would someone really search on “sleep” when what they want is “sleep training”? Would you search on “nipples” if you want to learn about “cracked nipples” or “Avent nipples”? If so, Light Iris might be the best place to start. Click on the pink lettering below.

Heather called Light Iris “too much special sauce and not enough meat.” When she searched for “cracked nipples” and “sleep training” on both Google and Light Iris, the Google results were faster (no flash intro) and more were listed on a single page. So, it kinda depends on how focused you want it to be vs. how much digging you want to do.

Try it for yourself and let us know.
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We’re just two people. Well, two and a half people. See what other Parent Bloggers think of Light Iris.