Reviews

Europe In the Round CD‐ROM, Guildford, Vocational Technologies, 1994

Adaptive hypertext and hypermedia : workshop : proceedings, 3rd, Sonthofen, Germany, July 14, 2001 and Aarhus, Denmark, August 15, 2001

This paper presents two empirical usability studies based on techniques from Human-Computer Interaction (HeI) and software engineering, which were used to elicit requirements for the design of a hypertext generation system. Here we will discuss the findings of these studies, which were used to motivate the choice of adaptivity techniques. The results showed dependencies between different ways to adapt the explanation content and the document length and formatting. Therefore, the system's architecture had to be modified to cope with this requirement. In addition, the system had to be made adaptable, in addition to being adaptive, in order to satisfy the elicited users' preferences

Adaptive hypertext and hypermedia : workshop : proceedings, 3rd, Sonthofen, Germany, July 14, 2001 and Aarhus, Denmark, August 15, 2001

This paper presents two empirical usability studies based on techniques from Human-Computer Interaction (HeI) and software engineering, which were used to elicit requirements for the design of a hypertext generation system. Here we will discuss the findings of these studies, which were used to motivate the choice of adaptivity techniques. The results showed dependencies between different ways to adapt the explanation content and the document length and formatting. Therefore, the system's architecture had to be modified to cope with this requirement. In addition, the system had to be made adaptable, in addition to being adaptive, in order to satisfy the elicited users' preferences

Usability of hypertext : factors affecting the construction of meaning

One type of hypertext application, information retrieval, has become increasingly popular and accessible due to the explosion of activity occurring on the World Wide Web. These hypertext documents are referred to as web sites. Readers can now access a multitude of web sites and retrieve a wide variety of information. The uniqueness of a hypertext document centers around the concept that text is broken into an array of non-sequential text chunks, or nodes, which are connected through links. The hypertext reading can be considered an interactive experience requiring the reader to effectively navigate the document. The potentially complex link and node structure awaiting hypertext readers can lead them into becoming lost in hyperspace Usable hypertext design will maximize document coherence and minimize readers\u27 cognitive overhead, allowing readers to create an accurate mental model of the hypertext structure. Usability testing is designed to determine how easily the functionality of a particular system can be used, In this case, the system under investigation is New Jersey Institute of Technology\u27s web site. The usability of a hypertext document is affected by design elements which contribute to the content and structure of the hypertext. These design elements include good navigation aids, clear link labels, and consistent page layout

Developing a design methodology for the construction of hypertext and hypermedia, with particular reference to hypertext electronic prospectuses

Use and development of hypertext-based documents is becoming more widespread in both industry and die academic world. This has obvious implications for the design of hypertext documents. The hypertext designer has been relatively ignored until recently, with attention largely focused on the quality of the hypertext rather than support for the designer. Recent hypertext design methodologies, such as that described by Isakowitz et al. (1995) have made a useful contribution, but are oriented towards designers with a background in computing science and related professions. This research addresses this problem by the development of a design methodology which is intended to be accessible to the general author. The design methodology was based on three sources of data: a taxonomy of existing design guidance, including a range of principles and guidelines and previous design methodologies for hypertext; hypertext versions of a higher education college prospectus, and a case study of a CD-ROM higher education prospectus. This material was assembled and synthesised to produce a provisional design methodology that is positioned between existing design methodologies such as Relationship Management Methodology (Isakowitz et al 1995) and Object-Oriented Hypermedia Design Method (Schwabe et al 1995), which are influenced by software engineering and database design concepts, and other less formal descriptions of the hypertext design process. The design methodology supports and encourages iterative methods of working, and includes supporting documentation and pro formas designed to encourage a thorough approach to hypertext design

METHODOLOGIES FOR DESIGNING AND DEVELOPING HYPERMEDIA APPLICATIONS

Hypermedia design, as any other design activity, may be observed according to two points of view: methods which suggest milestones to guide the designer's work and process which concerns the actual detailed behavior of the designer at work. Cognitive studies assess that mental processes involved in any design process show widely shared human characteristics regardless to the used design method. Thereby, they provide general keys to help designers. Thus, a hypertext design environment should equally consider the two dimensions of a hypertext design activity, in particular it should support the natural design process specificities, mainly the incremental and opportunist aspects. The paper focuses on the hypertext design as a computer supported human activity. It examines what is general both in the design methods and in the design process of hypertexts in order to determine which general features are helpful to designers. This analysis has raised from the observation of the behavior of MacWeb users during design tasks. It is related to sound and well known results in cognitive science. The paper also describes how the proposed features are implemented in the MacWeb system.Information Systems Working Papers Serie

Hytexpros : a hypermedia information retrieval system

The Hypermedia information retrieval system makes use of the specific capabilities of hypermedia systems with information retrieval operations and provides new kind of information management tools. It combines both hypermedia and information retrieval to offer end-users the possibility of navigating, browsing and searching a large collection of documents to satisfy an information need. TEXPROS is an intelligent document processing and retrieval system that supports storing, extracting, classifying, categorizing, retrieval and browsing enterprise information. TEXPROS is a perfect application to apply hypermedia information retrieval techniques. In this dissertation, we extend TEXPROS to a hypermedia information retrieval system called HyTEXPROS with hypertext functionalities, such as node, typed and weighted links, anchors, guided-tours, network overview, bookmarks, annotations and comments, and external linkbase. It describes the whole information base including the metadata and the original documents as network nodes connected by links. Through hypertext functionalities, a user can construct dynamically an information path by browsing through pieces of the information base. By adding hypertext functionalities to TEXPROS, HyTEXPROS is created. It changes its working domain from a personal document process domain to a personal library domain accompanied with citation techniques to process original documents. A four-level conceptual architecture is presented as the system architecture of HyTEXPROS. Such architecture is also referred to as the reference model of HyTEXPROS. Detailed description of HyTEXPROS, using the First Order Logic Calculus, is also proposed. An early version of a prototype is briefly described