A List Apart, a fabulous weblog about web design, has an article on how stories relate to making inferences and implications, and how that affects the design of a web site:

Stories have been around as long as we have, helping us understand our world and ourselves. We learn and retain information best through stories, because they turn information into more than the sum of its parts. But what makes a story a story, and what does it mean for the digital world we’ve built?

Making up Stories, by Elizabeth McGuane and Randall Snare.

Stories have long fascinated me. I have made up stories for people, especially for my kids, to entertain, teach, sooth, tire out (especially the kids), and just for fun. Stories as metaphors reach deep into our subconscious to open up pathways to learning new things and discovering new insights. Applying storytelling to web design is the way to engage the reader in something more than just another web site: it gives them a reason to link your site with something they want to experience more than once.