• What is hypertext?
• Impact of hypertext on structure
• How does that change your content?
• What else is involved in hypertext?

• >What is it?
  • More than text
  • Links to more text, graphics, sound, movies, programs, etc...
• Why is it useful?
  • Managing complicated documents
  • Footnotes
  • Glossaries
  • Individual reading styles
  • Multimedia
• How should we use it?
  • Carefully!
  • With Navigation Aids
  • To enhance structure, not replace it

Because readers can now:

• move sequentially
• jump around (skimming content)
• look for a specific piece of information

But readers can do that with a book - why is hypertext so different?

it doesn't just allow a non-sequential approach, it encourages it

• links are enticing
• easier than looking something up in contents/index - just click on it!
• easier to keep your place - look at something, then go back to where you were
• on the web, a subsection can be reached from anywhere (via bookmarks or a search engine), not just from the main page

• How does that change your content?
  • each section has to be relatively self-contained
  • you need careful linking forwards, backwards, and through
  • can't rely on "back" and "forward" going where you expect
  • BUT you still need good content
  • the rules of good writing still apply

• Books and other documents are often converted to cd-rom
  • Just by storing text in some electronic format
  • No change gets made to the structure
  • No additional material is added
  • It doesn't take advantage of the possibilities of hypertext
• What other possibilities are there?