Hypertext Articles

Madison Ultis
E-Word
10 April 2008

Hypertext Articles

Beyond Usability and Design: The Narrative Web
I liked the way that this article was broken up; I thought it made it much more readable. It definitely helped me to understand some dos and don’ts of creating a hypertext piece. I thought it was great that it was not just focusing on creating a fictional narrative for the web, since I am thinking more about creating another form of professional document or something aimed towards a poet that I admire. I was happy to read more about how other websites engage their audience by the use of a “narrative,” which does not necessarily mean an actual story. I definitely understand the idea of showing, not telling; however, it makes me a bit nervous to create something like this because I hope I can do all that they recommend.

Hypertext Narrative and Baseball
This piece was more abstract, hence the reason I had a more difficult time understanding their points. Their comparison of hypertext to baseball sort of lost me along the way. Like a baseball game, a hypertext document must include action that viewers can follow along with. The different plays that take place within the game are much like the different navigational options available to a viewer – they are not always followed in the same order. Again, this piece was not the most beneficial in terms of understanding it as a whole.

Patterns of Hypertext
Obviously, this piece began with looking for patterns in hypertext documents. It then goes through the different types of cyclical viewing, called cycles that occur in hypertext. There were about 4 different kinds, and they were rather easy to understand. The author then goes through the idea of counterpoint, in which two voices in the text alternate and interweave themes and weld their responses together. It then moved onto mirrorworld, tangle, sieve, all which I understand just fine. Moving on, it covered montage, neighborhood, split/join, missing link and navigational feint, which again, were all understood just fine. I particularly liked the way that this piece was broken up into those distinct sections, and how for each one the author gave adequate examples to explain them. I never went into the next section without having a decent understanding of the previous section. I think that in hypertext, it is going to be very important to be able to combine numerous elements, while also trying to maintain the readability of the document. This is something that I am a little apprehensive about, still; however, I think after I have my set idea of what I am going to do, I will feel less nervous about it.