A hypertext system allows non-sequential, non-linear, user-driven access to information. This powerful flexibility can result in problems such as information overload and user disorientation where users feel lost in hyperspace.
Elm and Woods (1985) outline the following three classes of disorientation :
Information overload results when the user is swamped with details which may not be relevant to current needs and can result of disorientation.
Although, to a degree, all these problems can be the result of poor system design they are also inherent characteristics of the hypermedia systems. Books are usually read sequentially; from a hypertext page it is often possible to access many pages next. This is of course a simplification, it is quite possible to access a book via an index or to flit from topic to topic, however, printed text is essentially linear and the problems cited against hypermedia are not often levelled at printed material.
These problems could be partly attributed to an unfamiliarity with the hypermedia concept. Experience with the printed media stretch back for centuries, by comparison the relatively new hypermedia has not yet received wide exposure. It is all too easy with a hypertext document to be lured off course; once off course, irrelevant information and further paths can lead to disorientation and overload.
These problems, in particular user disorientation, have received much research interest in recent years and a number of solutions proposed. One approach to these problems which is currently receiving attention is hypertext adaptation.
Authored by Serengul Smith
E-mail to:
serengul1@mdx.ac.uk
School of Computing Science Middlesex University
Revised: September 1998