Objectives

This section gives an introduction to the concept of hypermedia. It covers the notions of hypertext and multimedia and discusses the integration of hypertext and multimedia in hypermedia. It further discusses the requirements that must be met by hypermedia interfaces and gives an overview of the major hypermedia application areas.

Points to emphasize

Hints

Navigation is an important issue in hypertext and hypermedia systems. Despite the support for multimedia contents, many hypermedia systems intrinsically rely on text- or menu-based navigation techniques. Graphical techniques, such as 2D and 3D maps, however, provide much more powerful means for navigation.

Questions

  1. How would you characterize hypermedia? What requirements can you think of for hypermedia interfaces?
  2. Discuss the problem of navigation in hypermedia systems. Think of some solutions.
  3. How would you classify hypermedia systems? Discuss some examples.

Comments

Many systems today provide embedded hypertext or hypermedia facilities, as such as in online help systems. Most of the program assignments listed in appendix app-program involve hypermedia features.