Designing to facilitate browsing: A look back at the Hyperties
workstation browser
Designing to facilitate browsing: A look back at the Hyperties
workstation browser
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Date
1998-10-15
Authors
Shneiderman, Ben
Plaisant, Catherine
Botafogo, Rodrigo
Hopkins, Don
Weiland, William
Advisor
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Abstract
Since browsing hypertext can present a formidable cognitive
challenge, user interface design plays a major role in determining
acceptability. In the Unix workstation version of Hyperties, a
research-oriented prototype, we focussed on design features that
facilitate browsing. We first give a general overview of Hyperties
and its markup language. Customizable documents can be
generated by the conditional text feature that enables dynamic and
selective display of text and graphics. In addition we present:
- an innovative solution to link identification: pop-out graphical
buttons of arbitrary shape.
- application of pie menus to permit low cognitive load actions that
reduce the distraction of common actions, such as page turning
or window selection.
- multiple window selection strategies that reduce clutter and
housekeeping effort. We preferred piles-of-tiles, in which
standard-sized windows were arranged in a consistent pattern on
the display and actions could be done rapidly, allowing users to
concentrate on the contents.
(Also cross-referenced as CAR-TR-494)