Guided tours and on-line presentations: how authors make existing hypertext intelligible for readers C. C. Marshall, P. M. Irish, Guided tours and on-line presentations: how authors make existing hypertext intelligible for readers, Proceedings of the second annual ACM conference on Hypertext, p.15-26, November 1989, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States [doi> / ]

Background Hypertext has proved it can be a valuable medium for putting information online Giving some structure Allowing readers to traverse links according to level of interest and understanding Putting together a network of information is a different task than authoring an on- line presentation of an existing network that is understandable

Background Just as authors may struggle with creating presentations the reader may find it difficult to decipher on-line presentations System support of guided navigation does nothing to ensure future comprehensibility The linearity from link traversal poses a problem in creating coherence, maintaining context and managing transitions Dialog must take place between authors and readers to establish presentation standards for this new medium

Notecards Is a 2nd generation hypertext system used for this discussion Electronic cards connected by typed links Maintains database of cards in notefile Fileboxes impose a hierarchical structure on the network Contents of cards displayed in windows on the screen User may read or edit a card Text cards and Sketch cards used for writing and illustration What is important for this discussion is the presentation capabilities of Notecards Guided traversal, annotation of structure and content, slide shows and notes directly for readers and hierarchies with reader traversal in mind.

Guided Tours The development of Guided Tours came from these experiences, providing computational support for communication between the author and future readers The graph cased facility graphically represents the presentational structure, author and reader interact through the same presentation

Guided Tours The author constructs a tour as a graph whose nodes are the stops on the tour and whose edges are Guided Tour links Tour stops are tabletops- screen of cards whose layout has been author designated A user runs a tour by moving to through the tour by staring at the beginning, going to the next stop, going back a stop, or jumping to any tour stop. If there is more than one next stop the user chooses one of the stops The users place is the tour is illustrated Current open tabletop is highlighted, nodes for tabletops already visited have dark boarders Edges corresponding to the path followed using NEXT are darker

Issues for on-line Presentation Tools For this paper Guided Tour was used for organizing a supreme court oral transcript for presentation for two audiences Readers interested in argument analysis Readers interested in the content of the argument Authoring hypertext presentation is more complex than Guided Tours Revealed issue for designers and users of on-line hypertext tools should consider Functions of meta-information in structuring online presentations Problems with narration and reference Maintaining coherence

Information vs. Meta- information Meta information is material added to hypermedia to make the network more understandable to the reader. Guided Tours included: Expository text referring to the network Instructions to the reader about interpreting the screen layout Descriptions of tour structure Annotative information to offset fragmentation and lessen disorientation.

Information vs. Meta- information Expository text is needed to reinforce the content of the original work creates a major component of meta-information This added to the original work can face the same problems of traditional linear work Two other categories of meta-information arise Screen presentation Significance of font size, conventions of pointing devices, divisions of screen space Explaining these conventions allows reader to focus on content Tour Structure How it relates to the interests of intended audiences, audiences must have an idea of the authors intentions if they are going to make choices appropriate to their knowledge level and interests

Information vs. Meta- information In the example tour for the article meta- information was provided in several ways: Guide Tour Card Meta-information about tour structure Discusses tour structure at several stops on tour progress An illustration of the possible paths with description of information in the paths Annotative information can be important so being able to group this information can help a reader interpret information

Narration Guided tours have a quality of “aboutness” Due to the absentee narrator the author may want to provide a narrative voice and indicate their perspective on the work. In the example tour this was done through distinguishing meta-information from text already in the network through visual cues (ex. Bold font) Another challenge in providing narration are the conflicting goals of the narration, discussing content versus properties of the medium In the example tour the author used formality in the expository text and informality when the network content was not being discussed Since tour authors are not present at the time of reading they must consider reference Asterisks and other reference devices serve this purpose well but can cause confusion of scope in some cases

Maintaining Coherence and Context Since hypertext violates many of the underlying assumptions for maintaining coherence in conventional writing it is important to note the distinctions that between these types of writing In the example using sequential stops to discuss the same or closely related topics helped maintain continuity In the display spatial cues are used as persistent cards that remain across a series of stops Coherence can also be maintained through the notion of spines. A primary path through with minimal branching, side trips are defined relative to the spine

Conclusions There is a need to differentiate between creating a hypertext network for the user’s own research and other use and presentation of the same network to an audience Because these processes are so different there is a need to support each Mechanisms that support future readers moving through the network are a partial solution but do not support authoring online presentations Considerable meta-information is needed to structure a network for presentation We must further consider how to provide this audience directed narration.

Conclusions Future support for guided tours should include: Annotated graphical overviews Tour stops that explicate layout conventions Integration of expository information and other meta- information Context sensitive reference Persistent gesture cards Tools for support activities from other disciplines Examples of successful presentation strategies

Questions Do you think creating guided tours for online materials is still relevant? When would it be helpful? What situations do you think users already have a handle on and this would be redundant? What is a viable alternative to touring information when the author isn’t present? Do you think users or hypertext have evolved past the confusion of non liner information on line?