Navigation in Hypertext

In a book it is possible to flip pages randomly and read material in any order you like. You always know where you are, because while you hold the book you can see and feel the whole book and also more or less where you are. Furthermore, the pages are numbered, telling you exactly where you are. However, you will often not understand what you read if you don't read the pages in the normal sequential order. The author assumes that when you get to a certain page you have read (and remember) the preceding pages. In hypertext such exploratory reading is actually intended by the author. You should be able to follow links in any order you like and never encounter information that relies on material you haven't read.

Authoring hyperdocuments with a sufficiently rich link structure and in such a way that all possible paths are meaningful can be extremely difficult. Adaptive hypermedia techniques may help to ensure that paths are always meaningful. Unfortunately, whether a link structure is static or adaptive, the risk remains that users of a hypertext may become disoriented. Although all possible ways through a hyperdocument are (supposedly) intended by the author, most documents strongly resemble a maze in which it is easy to get lost. Experiments show that even in small documents users experience the "lost in hyperspace" phenomenon [NL90].

The navigation of the user through a hyperdocument is influenced by three factors:

All three factors have been studied in literature. Browsing experiments as in [DeVocht-94] show how these three factors interact.

A more formal approach to the disorientation problem is to study the possible "paths" through a hyperdocument. This is known as the study of browsing semantics. A formal analysis of a hyperdocument may pinpoint problem areas such as small loops and dead-ends.

In order to verify whether you have mastered the different aspects of this topic you should complete a test on navigation in hypertext.