chp5 & 7

Morville’s mapping in Chapter 5 of a homepage as a series of either push or pull sections reminds me of the student work Dan Boyarski shared in his design dialogue lecture. This abstract piece revealed with a series of radiating lines that one homepage offered 8 paths to “escape” the site altogether, either through related links or other advertisements. This confusion also can also lead to information overload as Morville later discusses on p.165, deterring a user from even trying to decide where to go next. If I wanted to buy a house, but the neighborhood was in disarray with trash and dilapidated structures surrounding it, I’d keep looking. If I come across a messy, out-dated website, advertising things I don’t care for or about, I will also keep looking.
It seems Jeff Hawkins’s memory-prediction framework is a similar metaphor that reiterates we learn what to trust and how to respond through what we already know to be safe and reliable. And in a time when no one seems to trust the government or any large corporation anymore, I guess I’m not too surprised about Steven Levitt’s discovery that abortion might be the real reason behind lower crime rates. Perhaps there is almost too much going on in the world for the news to keep up with and they are pressured by speed and quantity of information rather that quality. I often find the same thing paraphrased ten different ways if I search for a particular news story, telling me everyone is assuming the first and most frequented site has reported the correct information. Under this media pressure, web designers have to be responsible in choosing who they are representing and if the information they make “findable” is truly helpful. I think Morville sums up his message nicely in stating “information that’s hard to find is information that’s hardly found.”