Thoughtful learning
06 Feb, 2023
Do you ever feel like your tab collection is consuming your entire life? Do you constantly have to sift through countless tabs just to find the one you need? Well, you are not alone. Many people fall prey to the temptation of keeping a myriad of tabs open, thinking they will get to them eventually.
The issue of tab clutter is not new and has been a common problem for internet users since the early days of browsing. In fact, an Open Source survey found that the average person has ten or more tabs open at any given time, with some users having as many as 20 or more.
ABLE's unique approach to tab management helps users avoid these pitfalls by providing an intuitive interface that allows them to organize and access their tabs easily. By reducing the time and effort required to manage multiple tabs, ABLE can enhance the overall browsing experience and boost productivity.
Before discussing how ABLE can address the issue of tab overload, it's worth exploring the reasons behind why we tend to accumulate so many tabs in the first place. In a previous blog post, we explored the influence of three primary cognitive biases that contribute to this behavior: the sunk cost fallacy, loss aversion, and the avoidance of excessive cognitive costs.
The sunk cost fallacy is the tendency to continue investing time and energy into a task or activity even when it no longer makes sense. When it comes to browsing the web, this can manifest in the form of keeping tabs open on pages that we're no longer actively using but feel like we've invested too much time in to close.
Loss aversion is the idea based on the notion that the fear of losing something is a stronger motivator than the desire to gain something. It can apply to web browsing because we don't want to close tabs that we think have potentially valuable information on them, even if we're not currently using that information.
Finally, avoiding excess cognitive costs is the desire to minimize the mental effort required to complete a task. In the case of web browsing, this can lead to keeping multiple tabs open at once rather than organizing information, closing tabs, and reopening them as needed.
At ABLE, we understand the impact of these biases on our browsing experience. We've conducted extensive research on people's search process when looking for information on the internet and working to incorporate this knowledge into our interface. By doing so, we aim to provide users with a streamlined browsing experience that allows them to focus on the most relevant information.
ABLE offers a unique approach to online research with its built-in knowledge base.
In ABLE's knowledge base, everything is a node, eliminating the need for pages, documents, or folders. In future posts, we will delve into the advantages of this knowledge base structure and why it presents an effective solution for managing and organizing various forms of information.
To begin researching within ABLE, create a research node and name it after your research topic or even question. This node serves as a centralized hub where you can gather all relevant information on your chosen theme.
Another way to start your research is by simply entering your search query in the search input field. Once you've found a webpage with relevant information, ABLE's highlighter tool comes into play. Yes, you can create a research node within a highlighter popover.
When using ABLE, your focus shifts from the entire webpage to the specific piece of information you need. Our highlighter tool makes saving only the essential information to your research node easy, so you don't have to keep the entire webpage open in a tab.
While reading a webpage, select the most important text and highlight it. ABLE will then save this information in your research node with a link and your annotation.
The process of learning and retaining new information can be a challenge. That's why we recommend taking advantage of our annotation feature to help enhance your understanding and retention of the material.
When you annotate information, you not only highlight the significant bits, but you also get the opportunity to add your own thoughts and provide context. This process of explaining the material in your own words helps your brain better process the information, leading to a deeper understanding and making it more memorable.
As demonstrated in the screen recording, ABLE boasts a dual-pane feature that empowers users to work with different information from various nodes or web pages simultaneously. It allows users to easily reference and compare information from different sources without switching back and forth between tabs or windows.
Additionally, our Preview pane feature lets you open websites in a temporary tab with a simple CMD + Click on Mac or CTRL + Click on Windows. With the Preview tab, you can quickly scan through the pages, collect valuable information with our highlighter tool, and move on to the next link without cluttering your tab bar. It saves you the hassle of keeping unnecessary tabs open, which can trigger loss aversion bias.
As you can see, ABLE makes the research process super easy and efficient. By the end of the process, you can review your research node and gain a deep understanding of your topic. You can even organize your research node and use it as a valuable source for producing content for your blog, or save it for future reference.
And that's not all! ABLE has additional power-ups to enhance your research, such as the ability to simultaneously search within the web and your knowledge base. This means that when you come across similar contexts in the future, you can easily access the information you already have. But that's a topic for our next articles! Stay tuned for more amazing features of ABLE.
We're continuously developing new features to improve the browsing experience in ABLE. Soon, we'll be inviting our waitlisted users to test our proof of concept (POC) and provide us with valuable feedback.
Joining our waitlist gives you the opportunity to contribute to our evaluation and improvement of features and processes, helping us cater to your browsing needs and take control of your web browsing habits. Your support is appreciated and we look forward to having you join our community of ABLE users.
I hope you have enjoyed reading this article. Feel free to share, recommend and connect 🙏
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