Hypertext Gardens Notes Part 2

My Map Adapted into Notes

Starting off at the home page, you really aren’t sure what this site has to offer you for content because it just has titles on a black screen with very few images. I figured clicking on the link Mark Bernstein might offer me some help on that, and it did. I found out that Mark is the creator of the site. It also gave me a good background on other things that he has worked on and done. This page gives you a photo of him, and academic information, but tells you nothing of his personal life, and the text is very small.

I think the homepage could offer the reader a bit better of an introduction, and give more about Bernstein so they don’t feel like they have to link out of the page to learn about him before continuing. He had the homepage link to a bunch of links, but he didn’t explain exactly which way to read through them, or set up a map of how to read through his information. The reader is left to either have the patience to find it all by going through the links of the homepage, follow all the links Bernstein links to as they come up, or they might give up.

After reading about Mark, I went back to Hypertext Gardens and clicked on Into The Garden. I chose it because it was the first link and I had no idea where else to start. It gave an introduction to the site, and talked about audiences and how if the page wasn’t developed well enough with the hypertext, then a reader will move on. I moved on, but because the page had nothing else for me to read but follow to follow the links available.

To continue on after the intro, I clicked on the linked question and was brought to A New Path. The question was, “How can the craft of hypertext invite readers to stay, to explore, and to reflect?” A New Path says that we learn how from guidance from the literary arts and narrative theory and criticism. Bernstein says that his page Chasing our Tales, the next link I clicked, would develop this thought through architecture and design. I didn’t necessarily think the question from the page before was answered completely, but I moved on anyway.

I clicked on Chasing Our Tales and found myself outside of Hypertext Gardens again without realizing that would happen. I got lost, fast, in all of the link on this site, because it seemed that every other word was linked. I found it excessive and confusing so I exited out of that and went back to A New Path to click on Beyond Navigation at the bottom of the page.

This page talked about how the “Navigation Problem” that people thought occurred with hypertext was a lot less “forbidding” than people thought. There was a weird picture of a map, but the picture was too small to make out and it was tilted funny as well.

From that page I clicked on the hypertext development of the Web, which brought me to a page title Recapitulation. This page said that the “Navigation Problem” was an illusion because web designers haven’t stopped creating their “rigid rules” for the way they set up a page with a navigation bar or button of some kind, to make the page easy for the reader to use. This is now considered a “philosophy” because it has become the go to tool for a page due to people thinking of it as a necessity.

Recapitulation is all about summarizing your text or what you’re trying to say. I felt that he was restarting something that was already becoming clear, but he also added things I didn’t know, so I don’t know if I agree with him using the word Recapitulation as the title for this page. But that’s just me.

Seeing that I had already clicked on one link at the bottom of the page because it was highlighted as green instead of blue, and there was not hypertext in the paragraphs, I went to The Limits of Structure next. This page was different from others. It had side bar images and the text started at a larger size and got smaller. This page talks about how using a navigation bar is limiting to the page because it can come across as “inert and distant.” He says that a rigid structure for pages can be efficient, but costly because it can lose attraction to a reader. There are a few main reasons he thinks this, all due to the navigation system. One is that navigation centers “can send the wrong message.” They can overshadow other important things on the page. They make the design a “perpretual headache” for readers. And “efficient traversal provides the information readers think they want, but may hide information readers need.”

I somewhat disagree with this, because for me, navigation bars can be really handy when you’re trying to search for things or make your way to a specific page. If I had wanted to click on the page Recapitulation that Bernstein wrote, I wouldn’t have been able to unless I went through the rest of the pages that I did. That was his stylistic choice, and his way to prove his points perhaps, but it would have been handy.

Again I had found that some of the links were green at the bottom of the page, and there was no linked text in the page, so I clicked on Gardens and Paths and was surprised to see a picture of trees. Basically this page is saying that when you don’t expect the hypertext or it’s unorganized, it is like the wilderness. He’s making a comparison here that he elaborates and changes further on in his site.

This page was short, so I clicked on Interesting things await us that was the only linked text on the page. Another picture, but of a skyscraper, awaited me this time. This page was titled “Rigid design.” It basically repeated what I have already read by saying that a rigid structure is boring, just like the navigation thing. This information was covered on his Recapitulation page. I felt that this page was way more of a recapitulation though.

I then went and clicked on the linked text“anything more”, which brought me to a page titled Gardens. Another picture awaited, it was of a bench in what I assume is a park. This page retouched the topic that unplanned content and hypertext is a wilderness, comparing it to a park instead of a forest.

On this page, I clicked the last blue link at the bottom of the page, meaning it was the only one I hadn’t clicked on yet, The Virtue of Irregularity. It said that web designers are “taught to avoid irregularity.” And that paths should all be marked clearly. So that would make it unlike a forest.

The path of links kept going, so I clicked on the linked text exactly as expected, which brought me to a page titled Shapes of Space. A picture of nature yet again adorned the page. More comparisons to nature made, but pointing out that a pond is like an irregularity on land if you break the geometry of the page.

Then I clicked on the linked text the promise of the unexpected which brought me to a new page titled Unexpected Delight. Which, surprise surprise, had another bench in a park picture. This would have been a good spot to surprise the reader with a new kind of image again, like he did with the skyscraper. Bernstein says that hypertext is a garden that you plan out, so that a reader knows what to expect. He goes in depth about design and the concept behind using a rigid one compared to a fluid one.

A few new links were at the bottom of this page, but finding no more linked text I stopped here. I found out in class that the site’s title actually linked to two different pages. The word Hypertext eld to an introduction, while the word Garden led to the conclusion, with seven key points. I pointed out that this was like the seven deadly sins, and a connection to the Bible story of Adam and Eve.

I think that Bernstein used a lot of comparisons to nature, which was his point, but it got confusing going from the forest to a pond to a park to a garden. It was a lot tow rap your head around, if you skimmed the text. When I did my second read through it had made more sense, but I found ym third read through was the best to understand what was being said here.

Edits made March 3rd, all in italics.