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April 18th 2008
(1) The Perfect Website
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Natural selection and web page design aren’t two phrases I would normally utter in the same sentence but now researchers are using evolutionary algorithms to come up with the perfect web page design. The Telegraph reports that an organisation called Creative Synthesis has designed evolutionary software that takes a Wordpress theme and changes it gradually based on how a user responds to it. Through tracking software, they recorded and analysed how users interacted with the design. Any parts of the design that were not considered interesting or did not receive attention were ‘bred’ out of the design.
Evolutionary algorithms have been used before to design aeroplane wings and also art but I think this is the first time they’ve been used to design the perfect web page design. Unlike these two uses though, it requires human interaction which is both a positive and a negative.
“The mutations will always occur and while they are responsive to human attention, they are not bound by them. It is possible to develop unique mutations that may actually influence human goals (rather than the other way around).”
It would be interesting to see this technique used on sites with different functions: social networking sites, news sites etc.
I did think of using an evolutionary algorithm for Google Adsense adverts, taking the colour/design combinations which perform the best and breeding them together to try and get the perfect colour scheme to maximise click through. This has an additional benefit in that as people become “ad blind” to an advert the advert should automatically mutate away into something more visible. I’m not sure whether it’s technically feasible/allowable by Google’s TOC though.