This past week I read an article in the latest issue of WIRED magazine. The article was entitled Chaos Theory by author Nicholas Carr. His main argument in the article is basically that the internet is changing the way we read , focus on and analyze writing. In fact he provides recent studies that show that the brain it self is being changed to try and take in these pathways to content provided through the internet . The results are both positive and negative in that the brain is adapting to “digest” information at a faster rate, but is losing the ability to analyze and dissect this information at this rate.
His argument and article sparked up a lot of thoughts and questions in my own mind. For someone who feels like they have been training their brain to not feel overwhelmed by the internet, a lot of this writing helped me feel at ease. I very rarely sit at my computer and read an entire article on the web. I do subscribe to several RSS feeds and get daily newsletters in my inbox, but I do not read this information the way I read a book. I feel that one of the reason is the platform on which I am reading. For me a book is something that I can relax with on a beach and get lost in the writing. A desktop computer can have these associations with work, multi-tasking, and makes it hard to go “inside” your mind.
So how have designers responded to the issue of digesting content on the web?
IN TABLETS – I immediately thought of the iPad and the recent development of tablets. Aside from Apple making this new piece of technology to give tech geeks a new gadget to play with. The tablet platform is very different from the Desktop computer in that it is allowing a new experience for reading content and media on the internet. The size ( very close to a book), simple interface, and intuitive interface gives many suggestions that this device is perhaps aiming to take the place of a book. If that were not enough, advertisement is showing that it is a device that is something that you should relax with. While I think that it will be hard to take replace the connection and interaction a person has with a book, these tablets seem to be heading in a positive direction for taking in content on the web.
IN WEB DESIGN - Within the past several years we have seen many changes in the way content is designed in a web browser. There have been several advancements and scientific discoveries which have improved the way people interact with computers and web pages. A large part of these advancements and discoveries I think come from the study of a long list of umbrella terms such as Usability, Ergonomics, User Experience, Information Architecture, Graphic Design, HCI and the list continues. Moving forward in the “Digital Age” these practices are constantly looking at ways for humans to have more efficient experiences with technology, “More output then input”. Using traditional Graphic Design theories such as the use of grids, typography and information hierarchy, content for the web is transformed into more digestible and scannable content. This is of course in unison with User Experience, programming, and the underlying idea of creating applications that behave in a way a human can understand. Designers showed much of these things coming together at the advent of Web 2.0 .
The list goes on. For me, it is just a very exciting time for being a creator and designer of internet content. With new technologies such as Google Tv and tablets more people with have a chance to experience this content in new ways. I am really interested to see where it will take us and how we will make it apart of our lives.
