At the heart of the problem of hypertext lie the essential design issues of "filtering" and "navigation."
In its raw state, any system that "links continents of knowledge" would overload its user with choices. An undergraduate encountering Heart of Darkness might want to know something about the geography of the Congo, the history of Conrad's travels in Africa, and the iconography of light and dark in western literature -- but she probably would not want to visit these discursive places before exploring the world of Conrad's narrative.
Hypertext demands a mechanism that affords users flexible, filtered access to information, something that has been described as "broadcatch" (Brand 42-45). Once filtered for relevance, information has to be put before the reader in a way that preserves both the coherence of a present line of thinking and the freedom to explore alternative pathways.
See that post with different algorithms in metabole
See the journal French Metablog with today different posts
Enter Hypertextual as a member
In its raw state, any system that "links continents of knowledge" would overload its user with choices. An undergraduate encountering Heart of Darkness might want to know something about the geography of the Congo, the history of Conrad's travels in Africa, and the iconography of light and dark in western literature -- but she probably would not want to visit these discursive places before exploring the world of Conrad's narrative.
Hypertext demands a mechanism that affords users flexible, filtered access to information, something that has been described as "broadcatch" (Brand 42-45). Once filtered for relevance, information has to be put before the reader in a way that preserves both the coherence of a present line of thinking and the freedom to explore alternative pathways.
See that post with different algorithms in metabole
See the journal French Metablog with today different posts
Enter Hypertextual as a member
