What Hypertext "Should" Do

What a hypertext "should" do depends on the purpose of the document. In academic writing or fiction, negotiation plays a larger part in the meaning of the hypertext then, say, in some professional communication. In policies, procedures, or task oriented hypertexts, the author/reader negotiation doesn't determine the document's meaning as much as it determines the information the reader accesses at a given time and how that information suits the purpose of the reader. For policies, procedures, or other task-oriented information, the goal is to answer readers' specific questions; the negotiatin comes into play after the question has been answered and readers desire additional information. At that point, readers use the author's links and navigational aids to immediately access the additional information.


Author/Reader Relationship
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