How might Franz Kafka, today, with access to psychoactive medications rewrite his best known short story, The Metamorphosis? It might start something like this if he had also developed an appreciation for theories of web usability.
As Jakob Nielsen awoke one morning from pleasant dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a beautiful, beautiful butterfly. He was nestled in his soft, as it were gossamer, wings and when he lifted his head a little he could see his slender brown belly divided into three segments on top of which the bed quilt could hardly keep in position and was about to slide off completely. His numerous legs, which were elegantly thin, nicely complementing the rest of his petite body, waved gracefully before his eyes.
What has happened to me? He thought. It was no dream. His room, a regular human bedroom, spacious and pleasant, lay quiet between the four familiar walls. Above a desk on which a collection of eye-tracking heatmaps, which had been printed on an inkject printer, were spread out—Nielsen was a web usability expert—hung the photo which he had recently downloaded from Flickr and tacked it to the wall with reusable adhesive. It showed a female athlete, with a crash helmet and wearing roller skates, rolling toward the spectator with her forearm stretched out, smashing into the face of another roller skating woman!
Jakob's eyes turned next to the window, and the bright sky—one could feel the sundrops dancing on the window sill—made him quite exuberant. What about accepting all this nonsense and getting up, he thought, but it could not be done, for he was unduly preoccupied with his present conditions he could only marvel at himself. However he focused on spreading his wings and emerging from his warm quilt cocoon he was continually distracted by his legs. What a marvelous example of usability he thought at least a hundred times, watching his filament legs, and only desisted when he could taste something that a leg might have brushed up against. I can taste with these things, thereby saving the time required to evaluate tasty foods. I eliminate the need to transport a single portion of food to my mouth or attempt to evaluate it by look alone. I can taste multiple things simply by reaching out and touching it.
Oh God, he thought, what a rewarding job I've picked on! Deciding what's good and what's not on the Web. Traveling about to this conference and that, speaking with people, day in, day out. It's much more satisfying work than doing actual business in an office, and on top of that there's the ease of constant surfing, evaluating Tweets for usability, writing articles in major print publications, reading emails from casual acquaintances that are always interested in high page rank links. He felt a slight tingling on his back; slowly he spread his wings, pushing himself up and out of his bed. A warm tingle ran through him ascended to a higher plane of usability in his butterfly form.
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