January 22, 2004
Keeping track of web pages.
The NY Times has an interesting
article on the various ways people use to keep track of pages they visit. Apparently bookmarks are not proving all that useful, and folks are mostly relying on search engines to find pages they want to visit again.
So far, observation of a few dozen people in their work environments has revealed a hodgepodge of approaches to organizing pages, and bookmarking them is not at the top of the list.
Instead, some people try to keep track of Web sites by sending themselves an e-mail message with the link and a note of why it might be useful. Others print pages or use sticky notes. Some people, the researchers found, make no attempt to save a page, counting on being able to find it again with a search engine.
When the researchers looked at how people returned to sites they had visited before, they discovered that context made all the difference. When subjects in their study had the chance to describe a site in their own words and were given the description six months later, they had little trouble finding the site again. Yet in today's typical bookmark applications, users cannot annotate sites they save.
I think that part of the problem with bookmarks is the growing tendency of web designers to use the Title tag as a way of inserting keywords to promote higher search engine ratings, rather than simply using them to make easily recognizable bookmarks. The page title is what is stored when you select 'Save Favorite' to record them.
I like the suggestion of being able to annotate bookmarks when you add them. I've wanted to do that for years. And I'd also like to be able to select the folder that you store the bookmark in at the time you make it. But, most importantly, web designers need to focus on user needs rather than their desire to promote higher page rankings on Google.
But the real problem is Microsoft's browser monopoly. As long as they're allowed to keep giving it away for free, and thus destroying the market for alternatives, the state of the art is going to remain awfully low. I've been working with hypermedia for twenty years now, and have a lot of ideas and new approaches I'd like to try, but it's hopeless.
The same with the ebook market. They released Reader a few years ago, which they have never maintained, updated or promoted. But it was enough to destroy the market for more creative programs. With some help from the bozos at Adobe, and the extremely limited approach they've taken with Acrobat and PDF files.
And, to be fair, Apple's monopoly and desire to control all of the programs for the Mac is just as harmful. I've been reading about a so-called "resurgence" in the tech industry, but as long as Jobs and Gates are running things it will remain stagnant. I can't believe people continue to let these two adolescents run things like this.
