The look of the link - concepts for the user interface of extended hyperlinks

ABSTRACT

The design of hypertext systems has been subject to intense research. Apparently, one topic was mostly neglected: how to visualize and interact with link markers.

This paper presents an overview of pragmatic historical approaches, and discusses problems evolving from sophisticated hypertext linking features. Blending the potential of an XLink-enhanced Web with old ideas and recent GUI techniques, a vision for browser link interfaces of the future is being developed. We hope to stimulate the development of a standard for hyperlink marker interfaces, which is easy-to-use, feasible for extended linking features, and more consistent than current approaches.

References

1. 1.Andrews,K.:Browsing,Building,and Beholding Cyberspace,New Approaches to the Navigation,Construction,and Visualisation of ypermedia on the Internet,Ph.D.Thesis,Graz University of Technology, 1996,ftp://ftp.iicm.tu-graz.ac.at/pub/keith/phd/
2. 2.Berners-Lee,T.:Information Management:A Proposal. CERN Internal Communication,Graz,1989, http://www.w3.org/History/1989/proposal.html
3. 3.Berners-Lee,T.and Conolly,D.:Hypertext Markup Language Version 2.0,MIT /W3C,Boston /Graz, http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/html-spec/html-spectoc.html
4. 4.Bernstein,M.:HypertextNow:Showing Links,Eastgate Systems Inc.,1996,http://www.eastgate.com /HypertextNow/archives/ShowingLinks.html
5. 5.Bieber,M.,Vitali,F.,Ashman,H.,Balasubramaniam, V.and Oinas-Kukkonen,.:Forth Generation ypermedia:Some Missing Links for the World Wide Web. International Journal of uman Computer Studies,Vol. 47 (1),Academic Press,1997,pp.31-65
6. 6.Bos,B.,Lie,H.W.,Lilley,C.and Jacobs,I.(Eds.):Cascading Style Sheets Level 2 Specification.World Wide Web Consortium,1998,http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/
7. 7.Bosak,J.and Bray,T.:XML and the Second-Generation Web,Scientific American,May 1999 8.Brown,P.J.:Turning Ideas into Products:The Guide System,Hypertext'87 Proc.,ACM Baltimore,1987,pp. 34-45
8. 8.Brown,P.J.:Turning Ideas into Products:The Guide System,Hypertext'87 Proc.,ACM Baltimore,1987,pp. 34-45
9. 9.Bush,V.:As We May Think,The Atlantic Monthly, July 1945,reprinted in:Interactions,Vol.III.2,1996, pp.35ff
10. 10.Caillau,R.and Ashman,.:Hypertext in the Web - A History,ACM Computing Surveys,Vol.31 (4), December 1999
11. 11.Carr,L.,De Roure,D., Hall,W.and Hill,G.:The Distributed Link Service:A Tool For Publishers, Authors And Readers,Proc.4th WWW Conference, Boston,Massachusetts,USA,1995
12. 12.Carr,L.,De Roure,D.,Hill,G.and all,W.:Web Links as User Artefacts,Techreport,University of Southampton,UK,1996
13. 13.Chakrabarti,S.,Gibson,D.A.and McCurley,K.S.: Surfing the Web Backwards,In:Proc.of WWW 8 Conference,Toronto,Canada,1999
14. 14.Clark,J.(ed.):XSL Transformations (XSLT)Version 1.0,World Wide Web Consortium Recommendation, Nov.1999,http://www.w3.org/TR/xslt
15. 15.Clark,J.and DeRose,S.(eds.):XML Path Language (XPath)Version 1.0,WWW Consortium Rec.,November 1999,http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath
16. 16.Conklin,J.:Hypertext:An Introduction and Survey. IEEE Computer 20 (9),September 1987,pp.17-40
17. 17.Cox,D.A.,Chugh,J.,Gutwin,C.and Greenberg,S.: The Usability of Transparent Overview Layers.Summary Proc.of CHI'98 Conference,ACM Press,1998, pp.301-302
18. 18.Delisle,N.,Schwartz,M.:Neptune:A Hypertext System for CAD Applications,Proc.of Conference on Management of Data,Washington,USA,1986,pp.132-143
19. 19.DeRose,S.,Maler,E.and Daniel,R.(eds.):XML Pointer Language (XPointer)Version 1.0,World Wide Web Consortium Reenter Last Call,January 2001, http://www.w3.org/TR/xptr
20. 20.DeRose,S.,Maler,E.and Orchard,D.(eds.):XML Linking Language (XLink),World Wide Web Consortium Proposed Recommendation,December 2000, http://www.w3.org/TR/xlink
21. 21.DeRose,S.and Durand,D.:Making Hypermedia Work:A User's Guide to HyTime,Kluwer Academic Publishers,Norwell,MA,USA,1994
22. 22.Gronbaek,K.and Trigg,R.H.:From Web to Workplace,MIT Press,Massachusetts,USA,1999
23. 23.Halasz,F.G.,and Schwartz,M.D.:The Dexter ypertext Reference,In:Proc.of Hypertext Standardization Workshop,Gaithersburg,USA,1990,pp.95-133
24. 24.Hall,W.,Davis,.and Hutchings,G.:Rethinking Hypermedia,The Microcosm Approach.Kluwer Academic,NL,1996
25. 25.Halsey,B.and Anderson,K.M.:XLink and open hypermedia systems:a preliminary investigation,In: Proc.of ACM ypertext Conference,San Antonio, USA,2000,pp.212 - 213
26. 26.Hammond,N.and Allinson,L.:The Travel Metaphor as Design Principle and Training Aid for Navigating around Complex Systems.In:Proc.of the 3rd Conference of the British Computer Society HCI Specialist Group,1987,pp.75-90
27. 27.Hardman,L.,Bulterman,D.and Rossum,G.:Adding Time and Context to the Dexter Model,Communications of the ACM,Vol.37 (2),Feb.1994
28. 28.Harrison,B.L.,Kurtenbach,G.and Vicente,K.J.:An Experimental Evaluation of Transparent User Interface Tools and Information Content,In:Proc.of User Interface Software and Technologies (UIST'95),Pittsburgh, USA,1995
29. 29.Laakso,S.A.,Laakso,K.-P.and Saura,A.J.:Improved Scroll Bars,C I 2000 Extended Proc.:Interactive Posters,Den Haag,2000
30. 30.Landow,G.P.:Relationally Encoded Links and the Rhetoric of ypertext.In:ypertext'87 Proc.,ACM, Baltimore,1987,pp.331-343
31. 31.Lythgoe,J.N.The Ecology of Vision,Oxford University Press,Oxford,1979
32. 32.Markos,J.:Out of Line Linking with X2X -Satisfying the need for better access to information,White Paper, Empolis UK Limited,http://www.empolis.co.uk/ technology/tech_lin.asp
33. 33.Maurer,H.:Hyper-G now yperwave:The next generation Web solution.Addison-Wesley,Harlow,UK, 1996
34. 34.Nanard,J.and Nanard,M.:Should Anchors be Typed Too?An Experiment with MacWeb.Proc.of ACM Hypertext '93 Conference,1993,pp.51-62
35. 35.NCSA:Mosaic(tm)for MS Windows User Guide, National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA),University of Illinois,1996, http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/Software/mosaic-w/ eleaseinfo/2.1/index.html
36. 36.Nielsen,J.:Usability Engineering,Academic Press San Diego,USA,1993
37. 37.Nielsen,J.:Designing Web Usability:The Practice of Simplicity,New Riders Publishing,2000
38. 38.Shneiderman,B.and Kearsley,G.:Hypertext Hands- On!An Introduction to a New Way of Organizing and Accessing Information.Addison-Wesley,Reading, MA,1989
39. 39.Spool,J.,Scanlon,T.,Schroeder,W.,Snyder,C.and DeAngelo,T.:Web Site Usability:A Designer 's Guide. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers,1999
40. 40.Streitz,N.,Haake,J.,Hannemann,J.,Lemke,A.,Schuler, W.,Schutt,.,Thuring,M.:SEPIA:A Cooperative Hypermedia Authoring Environment,In:4th ACM ypertext Conference Proc.(ECHT'92),Milan,Italy,1992,pp.11-22
41. 41.Trigg,R.:A Network-Based Approach to Text andling for the Online Scientific Community,Ph.D.Thesis,Dept.of Computer Science,Univ.of Maryland, Nov.1983.
42. 42.Utting,K.and Yankelovich,N.:Context and Orientation in ypermedia Networks,ACM Transactions on Office Information Systems (TOIS),Vol.7,No.1, January 1989
43. 43.Vitali,F.and Bieber,M.:Hypermedia on the Web: What Will It Take?ACM Computing Surveys 31(4), Dec.1999
44. 44.Walker,J.:Document Examiner:Delivery Interfaces for Hypertext Documents,Proc.of ACM ypertext '87 Conference,Chapel Hill,USA,1987,pp.307-323
45. 45.Weinreich,H.:Concepts for improved visualization of Web link attributes,Computer Networks,Vol.33, 2000,pp.403-416
46. 46.Yankelovich,N.,Haan,J.B.,Meyrowitz,N.K.and Drucker,S.M.:Intermedia:The Concept and the Construction of a Seamless Information Environment,IEEE Computer,Vol.21 (1),1988,pp.81-96
47. 47.Zellweger,P.,Chang,B.-W.,Mackinlay,J.:Fluid Links for Informed and Incremental Link Transitions,In: Hypertext '98 Proc.(Pittsburg),1998,pp.50-57

Index Terms

• Applied computing

  • Document management and text processing

    • Document preparation

      • Multi / mixed media creation

• Human-centered computing

  • Human computer interaction (HCI)

    • Interaction paradigms

      • Hypertext / hypermedia