If only life had a search engine…

I’ve often fantasised about having an Undo button for life in general, but recently I’ve found myself imagining what life would be like with a search engine, too.

I was handed a 50-odd page printed marketing framework document last week, giving exhaustive context to a web design project I’m preparing a proposal for. I knew roughly which paragraph I wanted to reference, but had no clue where to find it. I then spent about 20 minutes flipping through it, trying to find a phrase I would recognise.

I had a similar experience in a local supermarket too, when all the aisles and shelves had been mercilessly re-ordered just as I was beginning to know them off by heart. How much simpler it would have been if I could just have typed into a console what I was looking for and it could tell me which aisle to look in.

Maybe I’m a complete nerd, but life on a computer is fast becoming easier and more convenient than life away from it. Could it be that user experience on the web is having a profound effect on the way we view our experiences in the real world?