Page Parking
As I started reading this article, I realized that I seemed to be using the browsing technique being discussed, or at least a blend. I have an online scrum board open all the time, but add tasks as I need them. Tonight I opened Slack and immediately opened the articles I had to write responses to, not to read them all piecemeal but to remind myself what it is that I have to do. I then opened Blogger and moved that tab around as I finished reading articles so that they were separated for easier referencing.
I think that the generational difference in browser use makes sense. Older generations use the web in a manner similar to that of a library, where you are essentially forced to do what the article calls 'pogo sticking' which is finding a source, digesting the information, then moving to a new source. Younger generations who grew up using the internet are better equipped to use a browser as a sort of mutable mental map, with many different tabs and tasks open simultaneously.
This difference was made clear to me when my grandmother and I were trying to pay my tuition bill this past summer. She would only have one tab open, and had a notebook open where she wrote down pertinent information such as links. With her single tab and notebook system she maneuvered back and forth between her bank's site, the university site, and her email, all without using the back button. Her process seemed very similar to that of using a library catalog and writing down call numbers. When she saw my browser and how I segmented information she was convinced that I was doing it in such a way as to not be able to remember anything and that I would lose information.
Discussion Questions:
How did this model come about? Was it some sort of mass realization that browsers made for an easier method of comparing things? Or something else?
The article mentions favicons, the little icons on a tab that act as another reference for what the tab contains. What constitutes a good favicon? A bad one?
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