Human Memory as a Metaphor for the Web - Page 3

While how we think individually makes an enormous impact on how well equipped we are to be innovative as web designers and developers, how our brains work physiologically also has impact on how we work with and grow the web.

The comparison of the human brain to computers is not only commonplace, but it also has gained broad acceptance in psychological, philosophical, and computer science communities. Some very general comparisons include those listed in Table 2.2.

Table 2.2 Brain and Computer

The web can be seen as comparable to the pathways of human memory. The best way to quickly understand this concept is through analogy.

My father died some 13 years ago. Let's say that someone in my family brings up his name. His name can act as the spark that starts my memory working. An image of my father comes to the forefront of my mind.

But the information that makes up my father's image is not stored all in one file or even in one specific part of my brain. It is, in fact, broken up into minute pieces of memory data and is strewn far and wide in various neural pockets, just as various bits of information on a web site are located in different files or directories. To put together the image of my dad, my brain has to collect all the bits of data—eyes, nose, mouth, ears, body—by rapidly traveling on a variety of neural pathways and ultimately putting them together in one cohesive piece. If these processes work, I end up with the image of my father.

Figure 2.2
Mid-section of the brain (http://www.exploratorium.edu/memory/braindissection/index.html).

Memory, like the web, can be argued as being nonlinear. Yet typically, most westerners have learned to read left to right, we conceive time as being linear, and we usually receive information passively from a single source such as a parent, a teacher, or the TV. We also tend to process information in a linear fashion—but only because we've learned to do it that way.

Memory can be thought of as a nonlinear process (see Figure 2.3), comparable to the way we perceive the data retrieval and circuitry of a web site. One piece fits into the next piece and so on, but they refer back to one another, connect over others as unrelated masses of information, and run in tangents, spirals, and spheres. It is the way in which we perceive this process that creates an opportunity for endless, creative discovery in educational and human growth potential.

Figure 2.3
Pathways of data traveling the brain (http://www.exploratorium.edu/memory/braindissection/index.html).

The experience of surfing the web is not generally a linear one (see Figure 2.4). We move through it tangentially. Our path along the way has spirals and spheres, but only sometimes do we navigate in straight lines. For these reasons, the web stands to be a potent element in the future of human development as it pertains to information absorption and processing.

Figure 2.4
Pathways of data on the World Wide Web.

The business of creating web sites challenges us to think differently than how we were taught to think. We are instead encouraged to think in the way that the facets of memory and emotion naturally exist and are expressed—complete with non sequiturs and sidebar discussions. The web is a buzz for so many people because it satisfies a very deep need to combine cerebral processes: left brain/right brain, the linear with the nonlinear, the conceptual with the concrete.

As web designers and developers, we can take the integrated potential of the web and, if we've been successful at integrating our own skills, tap into that potential as a source of inspiration. We can only benefit from understanding these interesting concepts and theories. Not only do these ideas aid us in deciding how and when to use specific approaches to a site's design, but these concepts also enable us to think about the user and his experience with the site.

Moreover, with this type of knowledge, web designers essentially plant seeds in fertile ground for high-quality communications. Even in the case of a commercial site, the opportunity for education, humor, and personal advancement exists. This is the web at its finest—a fun, informative, effective tool that has the opportunity to stimulate the mind instead of numbing it, as media which encourage passivity so often have done.

Information Processing and Human Learning - Page 2
Integrated Web Design: Building the New Breed of Designer & Developer
Where Integration Begins - Page 4