Saturday, September 15, 2007

Me Tarzan, She Jane, Need Information

I found the analogy on page 52 to describe information foraging pretty interesting. Do we really act like wild animals gathering food when we're searching for information online? If you take a step back and think about it you can see the correlation between the two examples. First off, the motivation of both parties is at base level survival. Wild animals hunt food to eat in order to survive and humans go online to search and consume information to keep abreast of current topics and to further educate themselves so that they can survive in this information age. Our search methods are similar to the hunt of wild animals. As described earlier in the chapter, people don't spend much time at all on each site. They'll scan it for a few seconds, surveying the site for any information that stokes their appetite and if they don't find anything they move on to the next site. The challenge to web designers and content producers is to tame the wild information hunt and make your site the "Ponderosa" or "Sizzler" of the kingdom - a one stop, all you can eat buffet of information and media.
With that being said, what are the appetizers that can be used to tempt a person hunger and keep them wanting more from your site? Is it an over clear presentation, great video, great visuals, interactive options, etc...?

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