Reflections of Memory and Web Page Design
Memory, is it only the retention of data? We are not machines.
I recently saw an episode of Scientific American Frontiers that explored memory. An experimenter found that memory was enhanced when pain followed an experience. This would make sense from an evolutionary standpoint. Remembering the actions just before a traumatic incident can help prevent a repetition of the traumatic event. If in a few cases that memory is the difference between survival and death and the survivors later reproduce, then the ability to remember things just before a trauma becomes reinforced by natural selection.
It is a hard to reach out from a computer and inflict pain. Yet someplace in the common consciousness pain and trauma can be invoked.
Memory is reinforced by order and harmony. Repetition also is a means of reinforcing memory.
The size and color of text can be invocative. In our western culture we have come to associate red with fire, fire departments and fire trucks. In China red has a different connotation.
Pictures of cultural icons can be evocative and enforce memory, though cultural icons can be mean many different things to different people. Cultural monuments mean different things because they are embedded in a cultural context.
In attempting to create memorable web pages, I find myself thinking about the deeper context. How can the media be used to make the deepest impression? Are my cultural icons meaningful to others, or are they just abstract icons?
Perhaps I am seeking a more emotive and deeper symbolism than I can express here.
The media expert may define readability in terms of order, consistency, and simplicity.
Yet I find also a deep impact on memory can be invoked by shock. There is a DaDaist film done by young Dali with a scene of an eyeball being cut with a strait edged razor. Everyone who has seen that film has a clear memory of it and can recall it on the mentioning.
Generations, like 9/11, or the day Kennedy was shot, or Pear Harbor bombed, hold some memories.
How can I invoke in a web page a memory as lasting as those?
Memory, is it only the retention of data? We are not machines.
I recently saw an episode of Scientific American Frontiers that explored memory. An experimenter found that memory was enhanced when pain followed an experience. This would make sense from an evolutionary standpoint. Remembering the actions just before a traumatic incident can help prevent a repetition of the traumatic event. If in a few cases that memory is the difference between survival and death and the survivors later reproduce, then the ability to remember things just before a trauma becomes reinforced by natural selection.
It is a hard to reach out from a computer and inflict pain. Yet someplace in the common consciousness pain and trauma can be invoked.
Memory is reinforced by order and harmony. Repetition also is a means of reinforcing memory.
The size and color of text can be invocative. In our western culture we have come to associate red with fire, fire departments and fire trucks. In China red has a different connotation.
Pictures of cultural icons can be evocative and enforce memory, though cultural icons can be mean many different things to different people. Cultural monuments mean different things because they are embedded in a cultural context.
In attempting to create memorable web pages, I find myself thinking about the deeper context. How can the media be used to make the deepest impression? Are my cultural icons meaningful to others, or are they just abstract icons?
Perhaps I am seeking a more emotive and deeper symbolism than I can express here.
The media expert may define readability in terms of order, consistency, and simplicity.
Yet I find also a deep impact on memory can be invoked by shock. There is a DaDaist film done by young Dali with a scene of an eyeball being cut with a strait edged razor. Everyone who has seen that film has a clear memory of it and can recall it on the mentioning.
Generations, like 9/11, or the day Kennedy was shot, or Pear Harbor bombed, hold some memories.
How can I invoke in a web page a memory as lasting as those?
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