Hypertext
2007-09-25 10:47 | 06. Characteristics of Web Texts
The most important characteristic of the Web in general, and – at the same time – the Web’s foundation and materialisation is its ‘hypertext’ structure. In order to define hypertext, the simplest way is to contrast it with traditional texts, as e.g. my M.A. thesis. Reading this paper means that there is “a single linear sequence defining the order in which the text is to be read” (Nielsen 1995, p 1), that is from chapter 1 to chapter 5. “Hypertext is non-sequential; there is no single order that determines the sequence […].” (Nielsen 1995, p 1)
Multimedia Hypertext
However, there are also printed forms with an access structure similar to hypertext, such as footnote markers1. So, to be precise, hypertext is a computer screen based illustration of “interlinked pieces of text (or other information)” (Nielsen 1995, p 2).
Since modern computer systems allow working with graphics and various other media, one also speaks of ‘multimedia hypertext’ or ‘hypermedia’ (see Nielsen 1995). Thus, using the term ‘hypertext’ must not imply that it is a system for dealing with plain text only, and so it must not for my concerns.
Nodes and Links
When describing hypertext phenomena, one must understand the notion of the two basic components of every hypertext – ‘nodes’ and ‘links’. A node refers to each unit of information, e.g. a text’s body (see Nielsen 1995, see also 
Huber 2003). Such units may even be comparable to traditional print media. However, within hypertext structures – so on a Web page –, each node may have electronically realised pointers to other units, which are called links or hyperlinks. Links can be simple text links, or e.g. graphics that make up virtual buttons, or whatever a programming language, such as HTML, supports to be a link. In contrast to the nodes of a hypertext, links must be seen as hypertext-specific occurrences, there are no comparable elements in conventional print media2.
Hypertext applications, i.e. Web sites, usually consist of numerous of these components that may either comprise multimedia contents or lead to many other Web sites. The World Wide Web therefore is a global network of nodes that may contain different media and e-texts, connected by links, forming an entire multimedia hypertext.
Actually, the hypertext structure of Web sites entails a very interesting aspect that one must be aware of when writing text nodes. As Nielsen explains, hypertext “presents several different options to the readers and the individual reader determines which of them to follow at the time of reading the text” (Nieslen 1995, p 2). This implies that the reader is enabled to interact; but what is most significant, hypertexts on computer systems allow the user to interact by very simple means, i.e. by a mouse click.
A New Dimension in Textual Communication
Consequently, interaction via hypertext means that a user becomes somewhat a co-author of the textual communication provided on a Web site, and he will take that role because it is so easy to follow a link. As he can immediately choose to click the hyperlink he shows interest in, he constructs his own thread of reading through the information (see Huber 2003). Therefore, the hypertextual structure of the information – the information architecture – is just the line of communication that is intended by the Web author; it must not necessarily determine the way a visitor receives the information. This represents a new dimension in accessing information of any type, that is, a new dimension in textual communication.
Thus, single text nodes must be semantic units themselves, say, coherent in content in order to be still perceivable as texts, and so to communicate their message. For the same purpose, one must be careful in linking to other pages that are much less related to the actual context of the discourse (see Kana et al. 2003; see also Nielsen 1997).
Nonetheless, making appropriate use of hypertext also helps keeping the context “without sacrificing depth of the content” (Nielsen 1997). This can be achieved “by splitting the information up into multiple nodes connected by hypertext links” (Nielsen 1997); this also helps to maintain the length of a text due to a given design, for there is often not enough room for explaining everything in detail.
1 You could have continued reading the primary stream of the text, but you have branched off to pursue this footnote; you also could have easily skipped it (see Nielsen 1995).
2 Not every text on the Web is automatically a hypertext. A Web site may contain a link to a document that requires traditionally linear, say, sequential reading, but which has just been realised electronically, e.g. a PDF or a WORD document. Such a text is then called ‘e-text’ (see Huber 2003).
Published by Christian Kuhn
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