Hypertext Interface Research Articles

Estudo semiótico da interface gráfico-digital interativa Picasso Head

The Semiotic Theory proposed by Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) is partially presented in the text, indicating a theoretical resource for reflection on the digital interface Picasso Head. It is an interactive, graphical, multimedia and hypertext interface, which offers users the possibility of composing drawings. To do it, the interface provides a predetermined graphic collection, with different traits, with an expression similar to the graphic expression of the drawings by Pablo Picasso. The renown of the artist justifies the proposal of the interface that invites the user to compose drawings of human heads, with features previously chosen in the repertoire of expressions of the artist. The pre-existing traits and indexes are available on the digital interface, enabling the user to compose drawings as iconic signs because, given the proper proportions, they will turn out similar in some aspects to the portraits produced by the artist. The plasticity of the digital media allows the free exercise of new forms of composition, starting from the choice of predetermined elements. This characterizes the interface as a playful-interactive environment, designed and intended for entertainment, creation, information and knowledge, introducing several different aspects and meanings that go beyond what is immediately perceived, because it is presented as a field of possibilities to the user.

Stance, Navigation, and Reader Response in Expository Hypertext

This article reports on two studies investigating reader stance, navigation, and response in expository hypertext. Subjects in the studies included 69 and 147 adult readers prompted to adopt either an efferent or aesthetic stance when reading a 36-node expository hypertext. Reading was followed by recall and essay writing tasks. Results of the studies indicate that prompts can be designed to induce readers to adopt more efferent or aesthetic stances. Main effects for stance on navigation and the essay response measures were found. Aesthetic readers were found to attain higher levels of understanding and tended to rely more heavily on a built-in reading path that was part of the hypertext interface. Graphic analyses revealed wide variability in the navigational strategies of readers, with distinctive visual patterns that appeared to be related to reader stance. Exploratory analyses examining data collapsed across both studies suggest node size may play a role in navigation and response and may interact with reader stance. The studies suggest that navigation has an important role in online literacy transactions and that usability of online materials may be enhanced by accounting for reader variables such as stance in the design of interface elements.

Improving deaf users' accessibility in hypertext information retrieval: are graphical interfaces useful for them?

This paper explores the effect of substituting textual links for graphical ones on the performance of deaf signers in hypertext information retrieval (HIR). Both deaf and hearing users found more targets, were faster and became less disoriented in the verbal hypertext interface than in the graphical one. Deaf users were outperformed by hearing users in all conditions except in short paths with the graphical interface. The results and its applied consequences, which would be also relevant to other users with similar problems than those of deaf signers (elderly people, people with dyslexia, people navigating in a website using a foreign language or people with low literacy) are discussed in relation to the CoLiDeS model of web interaction (Kitajima et al. 2000) and to the overgeneralisation of ‘Picture superiority effect’ (Nelson et al. 1976).

The Knowledge Adventure

The Knowledge Adventure

Facilitate Complex Search Tasks in Hypertext by Externalizing Functional Properties of a Work Domain

The premise of this study was that practical problem solving within a complex work domain (ergonomic design and integration of computer workstations) could be enhanced by a hypertext representation of that work domain. Two alternative hypertext representations were developed. The first consisted of an ecological interface design based on the means-end abstraction hierarchy (AH) approach (Vicente & Rasmussen, 1992). In this design, the goal-relevant constraints and functional relations within the domain were explicitly represented on the interface. The second hypertext interface was based on a more traditional classification hierarchy (CH) in which supraordinate categories were broken down into their components (part-whole relation). The relative effectiveness of the 2 approaches was compared using an experimental procedure in which participants solved ergonomic problems of increasing complexity. The results supported the following research hypotheses: (a) When performing a complex or problem-solving task, participants using the AH interface spent less time and experienced less navigation disorientation than those participants using the CH interface; (b) as the task complexity increased, the advantage of the AH interface over the CH interface increased as measured by search time and navigation disorientation; (c) no difference was found between the 2 interfaces for the simple task; and (d) participants using the AH interface also reported experiencing less navigation disorientation than those participants using the CH interface. This article recommends the AH interface as a more effective semantic representation of an interface for a hypertext application with a complex document in support of complex and problem-solving search tasks.

Understanding corporate data models

Corporate data models are widely used to support data management within organisations. However, both IS professionals and business users find them difficult to understand. This paper describes a methodology for designing and representing corporate data models that uses explanation and visualisation mechanisms to improve understanding, and reports a case study of the use of the methodology in the development of a data warehouse. The methodology was shown to be effective in that a high quality corporate data model was designed and then understood and utilised by all the participants. The model was used as an active, hypertext interface to the first prototype of the data warehouse. The case study findings indicated that: scenarios are useful for eliciting information requirements and explaining abstract concepts in the model to business users; graphical icons and subject area partitions are effective means of visualising the model and lead to improved understanding of the model by business users; and design rationale is an effective means of explaining the evolution of concepts in the model for specialist data modellers.

MMCX—An expert system for metal matrix composite selection and design

Metal Matrix Composites (MMCs) are a relatively new class of engineering materials that offer the designer an opportunity to tailor properties to meet specific requirements. The paper summarizes the development of an expert system which supports engineers in the selection and design of metal matrix composites. The system consists of a dynamic hypertext interface integrated into an expert system developed within the COMDALE/X environment. Mechanical and thermophysical property data for matrix alloys, reinforcement materials, and MMCs are stored in databases accessed by the expert system. Mathematical models which utilize constituent material properties to determine effective composite properties are managed by the system to design metal matrix composites and fill property gaps. Effective elastic modulus, thermal conductivity, coefficient of thermal expansion. Poisson's ratio, shear and bulk moduli mathematical models for particulate, whisker, short fiber and fiber composites are contained in a spread sheet managed by the system. Although the physical and mechanical properties may often limit the constituent selection, it is the chemical reactivity of the ceramic reinforcement with the matrix alloy either during fabrication or service which will generally control the final matrix/reinforcement combination. As a result, constituent material compatibility has been determined and incorporated in the system. A database of appropriate reinforcement coatings for applicable matrix/reinforcement systems is also helpful. The system also includes information on suitable manufacturing techniques. A case study demonstrating the use of the system for selecting an MMC for cryogenic applications is presented.

Speech-Aware Multimedia

Computer users have long desired a personal software agent that could execute verbal commands. Today's World Wide Web (WWW or Web), with its point and click hypertext interface, makes a tremendous amount of information readily available online. A speech interface would make the Web even more powerful, allowing us to access information by surfing the Web by voice. TI have developed Speech Aware Multimedia (SAM) with this in mind, to make information on the Web more accessible and useful. They combined an innovative speech recognition engine with the Web to let anyone browse arbitrary Web pages using only speech as the input medium. Speech brings added flexibility and power to the classical Web interface and makes information access more natural. Today's speech recognition capability is well matched to Web browsing. The Web page provides a natural, well defined context for a speech recognition application. The recognition engine does not need to recognize any and all possible phrases, but only those phrases pertaining to the specific page in view at the moment. This context imposes limits that significantly aid recognition performance. Furthermore, the visual information on a page prompts the user on what to request and how to request it by voice.

A World-Wide Web radiology teaching file server on the Internet.

Radiology departments have traditionally used film-based collections of interesting cases for teaching purposes. Film-based files are expensive to create and duplicate, and they physically occupy considerable space. As one solution to these problems, our department created an on-line radiology teaching file in digital format. Our teaching file resides on a Macintosh Quadra 700 computer that is connected to the Internet, a worldwide network of interconnected computers, via our campus Ethernet network. Our digital teaching file images and text are composed in HyperText Markup Language (HTML) and are made available to the world with Webserver software known as MacHTTP. These teaching files are accessed using World-Wide Web (WWW) client software such as Mosaic, MacWeb, or Netscape. Our digital teaching file is available at no charge to anyone in the world with access to the Internet and WWW client software. Our radiology residents can access this file via several workstations in our department. Mosaic is an easy-to-use interface, and the use of our digital teaching file has increased significantly. In the 3 months since its creation, our teaching file has been accessed not only by our radiology residents but also by hundreds of other users in 33 countries. Use of Mosaic and the WWW format has resulted in an easy-to-use hypertext interface to the Internet, which allows even persons with little computer experience to navigate through the Internet, read text files, view images (stills and movies), and download files by merely pointing with the mouse and clicking on items of interest. This has allowed us to maintain a central teaching file that is physically small and easy to share with all the hospitals in our system. We invite the worldwide radiology community to access these files and to submit cases from their own teaching files to share with the rest of the world.

HIFI: hypertext interface for information: multimedia and relational databases

HIFI (ESPRIT Project 6532) creates a set of tools to allow a reader to access a large body of heterogeneous information, managed by external databases created beforehand, through a hypertext interface. Information currently found in information systems is based on different media and is usually managed by different tools, like relational databases and a variety of multimedia database systems. Sometimes the need arises to ‘browse’ through the information using an interactive and intuitive interface. Hypertext is probably the best current means for interactive (and possibly intuitive) navigation through a heterogeneous body of information. Available hypertext tools, however, are usually seen as being for managing their own information rather than being an interface for accessing external databases. The HIFI approach is based on a model‐based description of the hypertext application, as it appears to the reader. A declarative and/or operational mapping translates hypertext operations (search, queries and navigation) into operations on the underlying information base and also ‘materialises’ hypertext objects, using objects of the underlying databases. The system also implements methodologies to support the hypertext interface development process. Real‐life applications will be developed to show the validity of the approach, with the cooperation of important end‐users who will cooperate with the project directly, either as partners or sponsors.

Hypertextual concurrent control of a Lisp Kernel

Using the Trellis human/computer interaction model as an implementation vehicle, we demonstrate how to use concurrency-supporting hypertext to provide visual displays of the execution flows through a parallel Lisp program. In addition to displays, the hypertext interface allows injection of control flow into an otherwise functional computation, and therefore provides reader control over the order and speed of evaluation of expressions. The resulting system, termed λTrellis, can be thought of as a concurrent control flow browser for composing functional computations, providing a visual implementation of kernel-control decomposition. The advantages of λTrellis are ease of exploring program side-effects; ease of debugging parallel code; aid in teaching functional languages; and the ability to construct hypertext documents that have parallel execution semantics and flexible browsing behaviors.

LIMES: a hypertext interface to a cholesterol management expert system

Hypermedia representations add superior explanation facilities and user interfaces to expert systems. LIMES (LIpid Management Expert System) is a hypermedia cholesterol management application built on the HyperLipid Advisory System created on the Macintosh II at Stanford University. HyperLipid is an expert system which was designed to administer the National Cholesterol Education Program clinical algorithm for detecting and treating hyperlipidemia. LIMES executes the HyperLipid knowledgebase within a HyperCard stack which embeds the inference engine of the expert system. The HyperCard module serves initially as a programming tool to communicate with the rule development system and ultimately as the interface to the runtime application. Predictors of the utility of this and other systems are the expertise differential between the system and end user, and the degree of risk inherent in the domain.

Transient hypergraphs for citation networks

While the graphic nature of cocitation networks suggests that hypertext would be an appropriate implementation methodology, there may be problems with respect to database update, node duplication, and definition of cocitation structures. These problems can be overcome if the hypertext system supports transient hypergraphs. Transient hypergraphs are generated dynamically in response to a user query and exist only for the duration of a query or query session. The system dynamically generates nodes of sets of links by type and by type-value. The user selects elements from these sets and, in response, the system composes nodes and instantiates links to create transient hypergraphs. The platform selected in this project for the development of such a system is the relational database model. The prototype system is implemented in INGRES on a SUN 4/280 using a SUN 3 workstation for the hypertext interface.

Advancing the Mind/Machine Interface: Qualitative Simulations, Hypertext, and Natural Language Processing

Advanced technologies, including artificial intelligence (Al), hypertext, and natural language processing (NLP), are transforming the Mind/Machine Interface. This presentation focuses on two large development projects underway that use these technologies in unique ways. Their use is guided by the three natural means of communication between people: saying, coaching, and showing; as metaphors for using advanced technology interfaces. The two projects are aimed at developing job and training aids for the Army. The most complete example is the Maintenance Aid Computer for HAWK–Intelligent Institutional Instructor (MACH-III). This is the largest and most successful implementation of an ITS to date (Psotka, Massey, and Mutter, 1988). MACH-III was developed by Bolt, Beranek, and Newman (BBN), to provide training in organizational maintenance of the main radar of the HAWK air defense guided missile system. Its core is a huge qualitative simulation of the radar. The complexity of the simulation and the troubleshooting problem space demand a unique hypertext interface, whose structure and function are only beginning to be understood. Some preliminary evaluation results from the U.S. Army Air Defense Artillery School (USAADASCH), Ft. Bliss, Texas are beginning to show its effectiveness. The other project, Building Robust Dual Grammar Exercisers (BRIDGE), will begin to explore the architextual structure of hypertext systems within the context of advanced technologies for military machine translation and military foreign language training. From this perspective, hypertext is a bridging technology that links the existing strengths of qualitative simulations with the future power of natural language processing.