Hypertext course: 3

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Class 3: Hypertext architecture, authoring, interfaces and multimedia

Hypertext production

Basic issue: to encode more information than is shown at the surface of a document, in order to support a variety of user-driven activities within a structured knowledge base.

The two classic approaches
- database - typically data design precedes data recording, relatively neutral with respect to final forms for viewing/publication (see Yolngu Matha grammar design)
- text stream/corpus/markup: typically data exists first and is incrementally enriched with metadata that is embedded in the text stream (see corpus XML)
The XML resolution (2 levels)
- SGML/XML solutions
- relationally stored data marked up and exported/streamed
Examples
- XML: select, export, and mark up
- classic CGI (RCIADIC Research Register, any of the search engines)
- database --> HTML paradigms --> enriched hypertext (see Yolngu Matha "Grammar machine")
- eMU: exporting persistent hypertext systems (use eMU to export/markup YM data)
A closer look at XML
- XML syntax
- DTD: where the work is done
- XSL: getting usable documents
- Download the examples (your browser may treat them in unpredictable ways!):
  - XML dictionary sample dictionary XML - dictionary DTD - XSL style/output document - dictionary linked to XSL doc
  - XML corpus sample corpus XML - XSL document to output titles - XML corpus sample linked to titles - - XSL document to output names - XML corpus sample linked to names
WWW/Hypertext design
- Linking
  - Types of link systems:
    - hierarchical (ie Home + tree structure)
    - network (web of associations, such as AIATSIS index, sitemap) (see AIATSIS Index)
  - Rhetoric of linking
  - Whose knowledge? centripetal hypertext
- Text
  - text style : virtually all text in standard styles needs to be edited/adapted
  - Nielson's "inverted pyramid"
  - Chunk size, expression
  - How do people read screens/the web?
- Images
  - Trends in using images (first out, then in, now out again)
  - Image problems and solutions
  - Media preview
- Sounds
  - Sounds have found limited use on the internet, none of them truly part of hypertext or multimedia:
    - unenriched sounds, eg Real Audio
    - as a search and distribution facility, eg MP3s and Napster
- Page layout
- Site layout
- Designing for disability

Hypertext for language

The paradigm problem - media bandwidth vs knowledge bandwidth
Examples of Linguistic multimedia
- Multimedia language resources
- Authoring tools: linking and annotation (linking: Yolngu Grammar machine; annotation: Annovideo; presentation: Karaim)
Whose knowledge is it when information is provided as hypertext, along user-negotiated paths? Author(s)? User? Machine?

Reading items for this class

#	Title	Detail
3	Kress, G. 1997. "Visual and verbal modes of representation in electronically mediated communication: the potentials of new forms of text." in Snyder, Ilana (ed.) Page to Screen: Taking literacy into the electronic era. Sydney: Allen and Unwin. 53-79
6	Mandel, T. 1997. Elements of User Interface Design. New York: Wiley	Ch 16 The New World of PC-Internet User Interfaces 383- 423
9	Nathan, D. 1966. "Caught in a Web of Murri Words: Making and Using the Gamilaraay Web Dictionary", in Library Automated Systems Information Exchange, Vol 27 No 4 (December 1996), pp 35-42
10	Nielson, Jakob. 1995. Multimedia and Hypertext: The Internet and Beyond. Cambridge, MA: Academic	Ch 12 Repurposing existing content 323-361
-	Useit.com: Jakob Nielson's website	www.useit.com/