http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Design/Information-Design/Hypertext A listing of the most recently indexed works about Design and Information Design and Hypertext in the field of technical communication. en-us Copyright (c) 2005-08 by the EServer. All rights reserved. tclib-editorial@eserver.org (TC Library Editorial Board) webmaster@eserver.org (Geoffrey Sauer) http://tc.eserver.org/images/newlogo.gif http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Design/Information-Design/Hypertext http://tc.eserver.org/33852.html http://tc.eserver.org/33852.html To understand how much content effluvia we're subjected to, I wanted to see how many links are on the homepage of popular websites. For example, if I go to the homepage of the Huffington Post, I see 720 links, in one shot. Then click inside to a story and you've nearly doubled that number—it ads up pretty quickly. What about the tech blogs? BoingBoing Gadgets, 514. Gizmodo, 468. Engadget 432, all on one page. And on average, fewer than 1% of the links on news sites and blogs actually point to rich content, 99% are navigation and other article headlines. Aggregation site Techmeme has a whopping 1081 links. http://tc.eserver.org/33206.html http://tc.eserver.org/33206.html The link is the basic element of hypertext, and researchers have long recognized that links provide semantic relationships for users. Yet little work has been done to understand the nature of these relationships, particularly in conjunction with the purposes of organizational/informational Web sites. This paper explores the semantic and rhetorical principles underlying link development and proposes a systematic, comprehensive classification of link types that would be of use to researchers and Web production teams. http://tc.eserver.org/30503.html http://tc.eserver.org/30503.html Hypertext is a novel approach to computer-based information management based on associative indexing. The concept in general and the characteristics of typical systems are briefly reviewed. Strategies for applying hypertext techniques to the process of writing a technical document are examined. The way in which hypertext documents are used is discussed, focusing on a commonly encountered problem -- user disorientation within the document. Hypertext-based technical documents are compared and contrasted against their paper-based antecedents. http://tc.eserver.org/29411.html http://tc.eserver.org/29411.html Nobody is offering courses in how to prepare hypermedia, nor are there a large number of jobs available for hypermedia authors. As we begin to come up against the limits imposed by the volume of existing knowledge, we will eventually be forced to place more importance on managing our information explosion. http://tc.eserver.org/29250.html http://tc.eserver.org/29250.html There are many models of hypertext, distinguished by a number of factors such as the underlying semantic data model (link typing and node typing), the degree of dynamic linking in the hypertext, and how dynamism and other behaviours are implemented. This essay examines a particular approach to dynamism in hypertext, based on the degree of similarity between a text passage in a source node and the text of a target node. It reviews work carried out over the past decade in creating systems for markup-based querying and dynamic hypertext, with particular emphasis on a model of dynamic hypertext that computes hypertext links on the fly using queries. http://tc.eserver.org/26818.html http://tc.eserver.org/26818.html Wenn Sie diesen Absatz lesen, sind Sie bereits mittendrin: im "Information Layering". Ihr Informationsbedarf: herauszufinden, ob sich die Lektüre dieses Artikels lohnt. Dazu gibt der erste, layouttechnisch hervorgehobene Absatz einen kurzen Eindruck vom Inhalt. Das erspart es Ihnen den kompletten Artikel zu überfliegen. Die Information "um was geht es?" steht vom Rest losgelöst auf einer eigenen Ebene – englisch: "layer". Während dieses einfache Beispiel seit Jahrzehnten in jeder Zeitung funktioniert, bieten moderne Online-Medien noch viel mehr Möglichkeiten Relevantes von Irrelevantem zu trennen. http://tc.eserver.org/26206.html http://tc.eserver.org/26206.html What will the 'document of the future' look like? What will be the new balance between text and other channels of communication? http://tc.eserver.org/24437.html http://tc.eserver.org/24437.html The personal computer has had a significant impact on the delivery of educational material. Hypermedia systems give students the ability to explore concepts in innovative ways. Unfortunately, it appears that many hypermedia designers have ignored the critical early planning stages. This paper provides an overview of three of those planning stages: audience analysis, system goals analysis, and control analysis. http://tc.eserver.org/24224.html http://tc.eserver.org/24224.html The production of a web page has become a common assignment in a number of university classrooms, but there has yet to be established a pedagogy for the generation of large group-generated web sites that replicate the methods found in industry. In Studies in Hypertext, a course offered to technical communication students at the University of Central Florida, such a pedagogy is being shaped. In this course, students with little or no experience in web site generation work their way through a series of written and small web site construction tasks to eventually produce one complex and competently-integrated web site. http://tc.eserver.org/23926.html http://tc.eserver.org/23926.html L'ennemi de l'hypertexte, c'est l'hypertexte lui-même... Abusez de l'hypertexte et vous ne tarderez pas à dérouter votre visiteur. Evitez donc l'effet 'labyrinthe' dans la mesure du possible ! Un utilisateur ne devrait jamais avoir à explorer des forêts de boutons pour obtenir de simples informations. http://tc.eserver.org/23837.html http://tc.eserver.org/23837.html Few designers explicitly think about their applications' interrelationships. Designers appear not have a deep enough conceptualization of their domains to identify intuitive relationships and realize the full scope and interconnections within domains. RNA (Relationship-Navigation Analysis) gives designers and developers an analysis tool to think about an information domain in terms of its interrelationships. RNA incorporates a complete taxonomy of generic relationship types that would apply to any application domain. http://tc.eserver.org/23838.html http://tc.eserver.org/23838.html The Hypertext Functionality field studies techniques for and the impact of supplementing everyday computer applications with hypertext (or hypermedia) functionality (HTF). The HTF approach encourages system developers to think actively about an application's interrelationships, and whether users should access and navigate along these relationships directly. It views hypertext as value-added support functionality. The HTF approach fosters three major areas of research: using HTF to improve personal and organizational effectiveness, HTF and application design,and integrating HTF into applications. http://tc.eserver.org/23266.html http://tc.eserver.org/23266.html Hypertext should be seen as augmenting the existing techniques of structure and navigation, not as superceding and replacing them. http://tc.eserver.org/23267.html http://tc.eserver.org/23267.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/23265.html http://tc.eserver.org/23265.html Hypertext theory chronically assumes the strongly fragmented card model rather than the article model of presentation. http://tc.eserver.org/23268.html http://tc.eserver.org/23268.html The Web did what no other hypertext system did (with the possible notable exception of HyperCard): it brought hypertext to the large public. http://tc.eserver.org/21764.html http://tc.eserver.org/21764.html World Wide Web authors must cope in a hypermedia environment analogous to second-generation computing languages, building and managing most hypermedia links using simple anchors and single-step navigation. Following this analogy, sophisticated application environments on the World Wide Web will require third- and fourth-generation hypermedia features. Implementing third- and fourth-generation hypermedia involves designing both high- level hypermedia features and the high-level authoring environments system developers build for authors to specify them. We present a set of high-level hypermedia features including typed nodes and links, link attributes, structure-based query, transclusions, warm and hot links, private and public links, hypermedia access permissions, computed personalized links, external link databases, link update mechanisms, overviews, trails, guided tours, backtracking, and history-based navigation. We ground our discussion in the hypermedia research literature, and illustrate each feature both from existing implementations and a running scenario. We also give some direction for implementing these on the World Wide Web and in other information systems. http://tc.eserver.org/21347.html http://tc.eserver.org/21347.html Fifty years before web, 30 years before the personal computer, Vannevar Bush envisioned a new machine to make sense of the growing mountains of information, creating the notions of 'hypertext' and the modern link. http://tc.eserver.org/20826.html http://tc.eserver.org/20826.html In the short term of three to five years, I don't really expect significant changes in the way hypertext is done compared to the currently known systems. Of course new stuff will be invented all the time, but just getting the things we already have in the laboratory out into the world will be more than enough. I expect to see three major changes: the consolidation of the mass market for hypertext; commercial information services on the Internet; the integration of hypertext and other computer facilities. http://tc.eserver.org/20829.html http://tc.eserver.org/20829.html The hypertext world has classically distinguished between two fundamentally different ways of presenting hypertext nodes on the screen: scrolling and cards. Throughout the history of hypertext, designers of hypertext systems have argued about the relative merits of these two contrasting approaches. The proponents of the scrolling model are sometimes called the holy scrollers and the proponents of the card model are called the card sharks. Here are examples of documents I have authored myself in these two models, using pre-WWW hypertext systems. http://tc.eserver.org/20483.html http://tc.eserver.org/20483.html When you place content, Adobe® InDesign® 2.0 doesn't just add the graphics and text to your document—it keeps track of the original files as well. You can use the links to update the data if the original file changes, to track down missing graphic information, or to replace a graphic with another, without losing the transformations you've applied. And when you work with text files, it's usually best to remove the link altogether. http://tc.eserver.org/20457.html http://tc.eserver.org/20457.html This Web site is a collaborative effort by students in Studies In Hypertext — a Technical Writing class offered by the Department of English at the University of Central Florida. The following pages discuss the political, theoretical, and technical issues of the World Wide Web and how these issues relate to the practices of communication, learning, and information retrieval in our culture. http://tc.eserver.org/19819.html http://tc.eserver.org/19819.html Because of the nature and complexity of collaborative work, there is currently much interest in examining computer support for team endeavors. Hypertext technology is particularly suited to providing such support. Many current hypertext applications support collaborative endeavors in diverse fields. Rensselaer’s Design Conference Room (DCR) is an Electronic Meeting System facility intended to support mechanical and software engineering design teams. Teams meeting or working in the DCR have access to sophisticated networking and hypertext technologies. Careful study of the processes and products of DCR team will contribute to an understanding of how hypertext (and other computer technologies) can best support team endeavors. http://tc.eserver.org/18996.html http://tc.eserver.org/18996.html Първата вълна на масирани ХТ изследвания се появи през 1992. Джордж Ландоу написа Конвергенцията на технологията и съвременната критическа теория; Дейвид Болтър - Писменото пространство; Майрън Тъман - Оnline грамотността. Опиращи се на различни предходни теоретични източници в спектъра от Дерида до инженери като Теодор Нелсън, и тримата поддържат гледището, че ХТ се заражда като идея в ранни литературнотеоретични работи. http://tc.eserver.org/18881.html http://tc.eserver.org/18881.html The nature of hypertext challenges many underlying assumptions for traditional literary critics. Literary critics frequently like to think that they have objectively looked at the lexias of the work, thoughtfully considered them, and constructed a solid interpretation or analysis of the work based on those lexia. Hypertext, however, presents the possibility that two critics who are reading the same work may have differing sets of lexia from which to work. Thus, even if critics objectively consider the lexia before them, they cannot free themselves from the subjectivity of the reading performance that made those lexia (and not others) appear. This raises the concern that, if hypertext critics can only present subjective views of the text, there may be little or no benefit to reading or writing those critiques. http://tc.eserver.org/14971.html http://tc.eserver.org/14971.html Hypertext systems are emerging as a new class of complex information management systems. These systems allow people to create, annotate, link together, and share information from a variety of media such as text, graphics, audio, video, animation, and programs. Hypertext systems provide a non-sequential and entirely new method of accessing information unlike traditional information systems which are primarily sequential in nature. They provide flexible access to information by incorporating the notions of navigation, annotation, and tailored presentation [Bieber, 1993]. There are a number of research issues related to the design, development, and application of hypertext systems. This paper is a review of literature related to all these issues. This chapter is an introduction to hypertext, some existing systems, and some pioneers who have contributed to the definition and understanding of many aspects related to hypertext. Chapter 2 discusses issues related to hypertext implementation. Chapter 3 is on database requirements for hypertext systems. Chapter 4 discusses user interface issues and evaluation of hypertext. Chapter 5 is on information retrieval in hypertext systems. Chapter 6 discusses research efforts in the area of integrating hypertext with the work environment. Chapter 7 discusses some of the applications for which the hypertext paradigm is most suitable. Chapter 8 discusses a systematic approach to user interface design for a hyprtext system. It is an attempt to apply some of the ideas discussed in earlier chapters. Chapter 9 is a summary of all research issues and sets some directions for further work. http://tc.eserver.org/14838.html http://tc.eserver.org/14838.html The attention of the audience is a writer's most precious possession, and the value of audience attention is seldom more clear than in writing for the Web. The time, care, and expense devoted to creating and promoting a hypertext are lost if readers arrive, glance around, and click elsewhere. http://tc.eserver.org/14517.html http://tc.eserver.org/14517.html Before coding any part of a hypermedia computer-based training (CBT) system, designers need to decide how much control their users should have over their individual paths through the system. Designers can choose from three different levels of control within a hypermedia CBT system: complete computer control, complete user control, and adaptive computer control. Each level of control is suited to different types of audiences and system goals. Current research provides some guidelines for designers—showing which types of audiences and system goals are suited to which methods of control. http://tc.eserver.org/13963.html http://tc.eserver.org/13963.html This article revisits three past articles about the implications of hypermedia in the 21st century. Each August, the ACM Journal of Computer Documentation reprints a classic article, book chapter, or report along with several analytical commen- taries and a response by the author of the classic document. In this context, a 'classic' document means one that was published at least five years ago but is no longer in print. It also means one that raises issues of lasting importance to the profession. http://tc.eserver.org/13964.html http://tc.eserver.org/13964.html NoteCards, developed by a team at Xerox PARC, was designed to support the task of transforming a chaotic collection of unrelated thoughts into an integrated, orderly interpretation of ideas and their interconnections. This article presents NoteCards as a foil against which to explore some of the major limitations of the current generation of hypermedia systems, and characterizes the issues that must be addressed in designing the next generation systems. http://tc.eserver.org/13724.html http://tc.eserver.org/13724.html Since this is going to be a wild ride across a some disciplines that don’t normally talk to each other, let me start with a short, structural overview to get everyone situated. I’m going to begin by defining some terms. They’re all relatively simple, common terms, but I’m going to attempt to bring them together in a particular configuration; in order for that configuration to make sense, I need to settle on some loose definitions and, at the same time, make the terms relevant to our discussion. Next--and this is probably the bulk of the talk--I’ll be outlining a geneaology of work, particularly as it relates to interface design. In this history, I’m interested in understanding, from a critical perspective, what happens to work as it increasingly takes place within the computer interface. I’ll say here that the end of this history is where the terms “postmodernism,” “work,” and “interface” come together. Finally, I’ll offer some suggestions—and examples—of ways that we -- as teachers, researchers, designers, communicators -- can begin to deal productively with some of the problems I see with how interfaces are currently being designed and used. http://tc.eserver.org/13698.html http://tc.eserver.org/13698.html The final decade of the last century witnessed the dramatic rise of hypertext as a literary, technical, social, and intellectual phenomenon. Today, despite the fact that hypertext provides the conceptual underpinnings for the World Wide Web (among other things), 'hypertext' remains a relatively peripheral term. In this talk, I'll track some of the ways that 'hypertext' has been articulated during the last five decades, describing how the social construction of hypertext inscribed the technology(ies) in limiting and ultimately self-defeating ways. I'll then attempt to track (and construct) some possible futures for a dramatically redefined hypertext, one constructed as an 'ethic of reference' within and among social communities rather than a technical practice. http://tc.eserver.org/13700.html http://tc.eserver.org/13700.html This presentation traces the locations and roles of computer documentation over the latter half of the 20th century in order to construct a model of information/knowledge space as it relates to different forms of work. The paper then provides suggestions about future forms of documentation and interface based on ethnographic research of workers in recently emerging forms of work, including nonlinear audio/video production and videogame playing. The final section of the paper provides concrete suggestions about forms of documentation and interface that will be required to support these new forms of work. http://tc.eserver.org/13652.html http://tc.eserver.org/13652.html A discussion of some of the most compelling elements of current hypertext theory. By practicing the theory it preaches, it hopes to explicitly model the theoretical interrogations of the issue. http://tc.eserver.org/10673.html http://tc.eserver.org/10673.html I have twisted the language to contrive the title of this essay because I want to interrogate the future of literacy, both its electronic formations (if indeed these differ from its pre-electronic ones) and its social origins and effects. Hence: I am using the unpronounceable locution e-literacies in two different ways: first, to mean those reading and writing processes specific to electronic texts (by texts, I mean a whole range of digitally encoded materials -- words, sounds, pictures, video clips, simulations, etc.); second, to signify elite-racies as in those socio-economic elites whose interests might be served by electronic literacies of one sort or another, or who might come to be elites by virtue of their ability to shape electronic literacies. http://tc.eserver.org/10419.html http://tc.eserver.org/10419.html This article explores what it means to think visually and spatially in hypertexts. As visual-spatial texts, hypertexts urge users to think differently than they do with paper-based (verbal-linear) texts, perceiving the hypertext in three-dimensions and imagining the possible 'future paths' that might be followed in the text. Drawing from research on visual-spatial thinking from cognitive science, we explore how users react and maneuver in real and virtual three-dimensional spaces. Then we offer four principles of visual thinking that can be applied to the development of hypertexts. Illustrative uses of these principles are provided. http://tc.eserver.org/10321.html http://tc.eserver.org/10321.html Linking, when properly executed, enhances the value of content by providing a consistent perspective and organizational scheme that enriches the user's experience. Link authoring, like content authoring, is a creative process of making connections between disparate yet related information. Effective link authoring requires intellect, creativity, and domain knowledge to define the relationships among concepts that can support a particular pedagogical objective. The contribution of hypermedia link authoring is often poorly understood and unrecognized by traditional academic and publishing communities. Publishers of commercial and academic hypermedia typically neither formally recognize link authoring as something that should be protected by copyright, nor do they extend to those involved in link authoring the same degree of credit or remuneration given conventional content authors or illustrators. http://tc.eserver.org/10289.html http://tc.eserver.org/10289.html When I first came to Boeing, my workgroup delivered documents (stored either in Microsoft Word or XyWrite) in hardcopy format. As more modern document delivery options were made available to us, I convinced the customers, development staff and the management to adopt these new technologies to make documentation maintenance and delivery easier. I also converted over 1000 pages of documentation (such as language reference manuals, quick reference guides, installation guides and user guides) from strict text formatting to hypertext. This chapter will share what I learned with you. Here are some guidelines I recommend you follow when you begin to convert your paper-based documents to hypertext. Each guideline will be expounded later in this chapter. http://tc.eserver.org/10293.html http://tc.eserver.org/10293.html The World-Wide Web empowers writers, educators, and businesses with a new medium to display content, communicate to their audiences, advertise, or simply organize information for a new type of presentation. Because the last ten years mark the growth and emergence of web technology and proliferation, web design standards are slowly emerging, and have not yet solidified. The medium is immature, can be misused, and frequently communicates ineffectively. Many writers and designers of web pages are faced with the challenge of converting information traditionally printed linearly to a non-linear presentation on the Web. This changes information organization, encourages the hypertext theory, engages readers, and takes advantage of the dynamic flexibility of the Web.