Toward an organic hypertext

Abstract

The Connection System is an adaptive hypermedia system for hypertext poetry and fiction. Its adaptive features can help maintain the large-scale structural integrity of the text that emerges during a reading, no matter what local navigational choices the reader makes. Authors can define structural components and specify adaptive behaviors for the textual and navigational elements within them. By establishing criteria for displaying links or text fragments conditionally, authors can encapsulate their understanding of structural possibilities to better guide the formation of the emergent structure without reducing the reader's agency or freedom of interaction. The system models the reader's knowledge of textual components and uses this model to guide adaptive behavior and give the reader a better sense of how structural elements are unfolding. We consider the problems involved with modeling the knowledge of a literary text, and we offer specific examples of how adaptivity can give the reader more control over the reading and make it more satisfying.