Structure of The Victorian Novel; Time, place, character and narrative.

Pay attention, it’s more exciting than the Internet.
Time: The great thing about web sites is that they can be continually updated. The crap thing about web sites is that they hardly ever are. Clocks, calendars and visitor counters add nothing to zeitgeist of a web site [especially if you know that they are usually slapped on from off the shelf Java routines]. The first thing you do to check if someone is alive or frozen in time [i.e. dead] is to talk to them. If that doesn’t work you could always just give them a good shake. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” the first line of Dickens’ A Tale of Two cities. Wake up before it’s too late, you’re running out of time!

Place: In ‘cyber space’ there are no real places but this is not an excuse for wilful abstraction, it imposes a real need for users to identify and emotionally connect with Internet sites in an instinctive way. When I went to Boston last week, the reason I knew it was Boston, Lincolnshire and not Boston, Massachusetts had nothing to do with the big sign saying “Welcome to God’s own county” but it was the scale and the light and the smell of the place [cabbages actually]. Usability studies have made great play on consistency and conformity but if every web site looks the same, how can you tell where you are and do you even care?

Character: How does one create character or identity for an organisation without the shop fronts, marble clad receptions and monumental erections of old school corporations? Brand values take on a whole new significance in an arena where there is absolutely nothing except brand values. No ice cold and addictive refreshing soft drink, no purring 12 cylinder engine, and no whiter whites. It all comes down to colours, shapes and clever words. But,a word of warning, just because a corporation has chosen blue as signifier of their brand doesn’t mean they attend board meetings painted heads to toe in woad in blue rooms saturated with blue light and drink blue coffee. Even Dickens would draw the line at such gross cartoons.

Narrative: Hypertext, the H in HTML, implies no linear narrative, and is theoretically totally in the control of the user and entirely random. But we all know we need direction in life and never more so than when we are lost in space. Yes, the doorways are always there, but users need to be led. The people who think they know it all [power users] must be free to get lost at their leisure, but the rest of us want to know what happens next. Who shoot Phil?

All this might seem a bit of a tall order for the tiny world of digital design: smell? sound? Heroes? Life goals? secrets and lies? But if the Victorian novel can do it in black ink on grubby brown paper with no pictures then I think we can aim as high.