I thought that each hypertext piece we read was informational in its own right, but Hypertext Gardens was definitely my favorite. It was a fun take on something that informative, and I liked and respected that approach very much. In terms of my least favorite, the "In The Changing Room" piece was difficult for me to follow, and I did not like that you could never get "home," or at least not to my knowledge.
The Hypertext Gardens illustrated the role of navigation in hypertext and he went through the ways in which hypertext was similar to a flower garden. Immediately the color scheme and background caught my attention. I liked the black background with the flourescent/neon text in the foreground. There are a variety of links to follow after the initial splash page. Once I was following through each page, there were different colored links at the bottom to specify where I had already been. I was very happy about this "breadcrumb" effect because it alleviated some of the confusion for me. I know in other hypertext pieces in the past, I get lost and do not know where I have been because there is no distinction between the visited and unvisited links.
I also liked in his piece how he actually took into account for his own design what he was talking about in his text. For example, there was just enough combination of the familiar and unfamiliar from page to page. While the design was not rigid, with no irregularity, there was room for fluidity on each page, and the viewer was not left thrown off guard by the changes from page to page. I liked the different images included on each page; I thought they enhanced the design, as well as the message that he was trying to get across.
The pathways in the piece are both embedded in the text, but also along the bottom of each page. While on some pages there is just one link to follow to the next section, there is sometimes a few links under the text, which give the reader a few different options to follow from. He says that much like a garden path, the hypertext path must lead us along the best route, not necessarily the shortest. I thought this was important to note because so often in our society, we are concerned with the quickest way to get to the end of something, rather than taking in the beauty of it.
I really liked his 7 Tips for Gardening section (I can't remember the actual name off the top of my head). It really wraps up the ideas he presented in the entire piece and I think that helps a lot. The conclusion hits home what he was getting at with this piece of hypertext and then it also includes all the visited links at the bottom. I thought this was a great way to end the piece because it showed if everything was covered to the best of the reader's ability. If there was a link that he/she missed, now is the chance to be able to go back and view it.
Overall, I thought that this piece was a great learning resource, especially for our final project. I think that creating something this in-depth would take a lot of work and organization. I think it would be difficult to attempt at this point, but I hope to take into account some of his principles in my own final project, as well as any hypertext I might produce later on.
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