Can someone tell me what this feature is called?

[OneGrassRoot]

I'm trying to find out how to create something but don't even know what it's called. :rofl:

One aspect of it is a simple query input field -- like a twitter status bar -- with the contents to then feed into a designated page on my website.

But my dream is to have some of the "bells and whistles" as seen at this site:

http://www.annefrank.org/annefranktree


For the text from the input field to become a graphic element, similar to the Tree/Leaf theme at the Anne Frank site.

Can someone tell me how I even describe such a thing? Is it a flash query input field or something?

Thanks! :)