#23266
Clarifying the Real Goals of Hypertext
Hypertext should be seen as augmenting the existing techniques of structure and navigation, not as superceding and replacing them.
Hoffman, Michael. Hypertext Navigation. Articles>Information Design>Hypertext
#23270
Design for Rapid Navigation and Easy Visual Scanning
The philosophy of designing for usability.
Hoffman, Michael. Hypertext Navigation. Design>Web Design>Hypertext>Usability
#23263
Designing Better HTML Authoring Tools
A collection of proposed new tools and features for adding structure to the Web.
Hoffman, Michael. Hypertext Navigation. Articles>Web Design>User Interface>Software
#23272
Enabling Extremely Rapid Navigation in Your Web or Document 
This article presents information design techniques that apply to web sites, help systems, hardcopy, and online documentation. When the standard document navigation structures are provided, readers can rapidly survey the scope of a web or document and jump to the pages of greatest interest. This article explains the nature and benefits of detailed outlines and recommends that web authors provide a reasonably detailed and structured outline of their web site. Surfing the web can be speeded up greatly by loading fewer irrelevant pages and by giving users an (additional) alternative to page-by-page exploration, thus avoiding the lost-in-hyperspace syndrome. The distinctions between overviews, tables of contents, full-text searches, database keyword searches, and topical indexes are explained, to justify providing multiple approaches for the reader.
Hoffman, Michael. Hypertext Navigation (1997). Design>Web Design>Usability
#23264
Hypertext for Handling Conceptual Material
Turning 'help' systems and 'browsers' into robust structured-document viewers: the DocBrowser.
Hoffman, Michael. Hypertext Navigation. Articles>Documentation>Web Design>Web Browsers
#23267
The 'article' approach is better than the 'card' (or 'topic') approach. Concatenate your hypertext nodes and format the headings relatively, for increased comprehensibility of large amounts of conceptual material. Placing node bodies contiguously enhances visibility of information structure.
Hoffman, Michael. Hypertext Navigation. Articles>Information Design>Hypertext
#23265
Long Pages and Gentler Separation of Adjacent Nodes
Hypertext theory chronically assumes the strongly fragmented card model rather than the article model of presentation.
Hoffman, Michael. Hypertext Navigation. Articles>Information Design>Hypertext
#23269
Practical Design of Outlines and Site Maps
Experimental new hierarchy-navigation UIs can hardly improve on the ancient outline.
Hoffman, Michael. Hypertext Navigation. Articles>Information Design>User Interface>Sitemaps
#23260
Rapid Navigation in Online Documents
A site dedicated to the design of documents and viewers to support structured hypertext and easy skimming. The site covers information structuring, rapid navigation, and designing Help, Web pages, and documents. The intended audience for this site includes UI designers, technical writers, Web developers, Help authors, usability testers, and hypertext theorists.
Hoffman, Michael. Hypertext Navigation (2003). Design>Web Design>Hypertext>Usability
#23268
Research About Hypertext Navigation and Web Structure-Handling Capabilities
The Web did what no other hypertext system did (with the possible notable exception of HyperCard): it brought hypertext to the large public.
Hoffman, Michael. Hypertext Navigation. Articles>Information Design>Hypertext
#23271
Software Features and Changes Needed for Better Viewing
With Netscape, when you first load this page, none of the following links are marked as 'already seen'. IE is very bad on this point: when you load this page, all the links below (internal page A NAME links) are marked as 'already seen'. That is, Netscape tracks internal page jumps; IE doesn't recognize them; in its history tracking, it lumps together all the links for a page as being identical with the overall page as a destination. This is a great example of a basic feature that is very much needed.
Hoffman, Michael. Hypertext Navigation. Design>Web Design>User Interface>Web Browsers
#23273
GUI fragmentation is the greatest competitive weakness of UNIX. There is no standard Unix File Manager or Text Editor or Help -- that's shocking, in this age! Every Windows or Mac machine has a standard file manager and text editor and help system. The casual end user can accomplish elementary end-user tasks without encountering anything different from machine to machine.
Hoffman, Michael. Hypertext Navigation. Design>User Interface>Operating Systems>UNIX
