visual foragers

An interesting metaphor I've come across in the "website usability" community is that of internet users as animals foraging for food and sites having varying levels of "information scent" drawing users their way. To try to tie it into the garbage discussion I'm reminded of the Flower Island film Adrian posted, in which third-world pigs and people - in that order - forage for sustenance among the refuse of first-world society. To combine this with the garbage patch metaphor of the internet, one could consider internet users as the foragers from the film, each adrift in his/her/its own raft among the gyre of information spiraling through the internet void/ocean, passing through/over the invisible mass, trying to sniff out their own desired fare.

The way we forage is what I've been been thinking about lately, and this site Alert Box has been my main source of non-theoretical, practical research from inside the industry, especially their "eye tracking" technology. I recently used their findings to create this piece (below) that uses the F-shape pattern, especially pronounced in Google search analysis, to relate to the Pacific Garbage Patch and the idea of things being incomprehensible when not visualize-able. It's simple but I like it, though I'm guessing it would be much less effective/interesting without explanation of both sources.

(click to enlarge)


I feel like this also ties in with Lizzie's thinking about the materiality of vision.