Hartmut Obendorf, Harald WeinreichFaculty for Informatics, University of Hamburg

The Look of the LinkConcepts for the visualization of extended hyperlinks

Overview

Motivation

Create a vision Locate problems Sketch solutions

Conclusion Systematic UI development Need for UI guidelines

Motivation for Our Work

Implications for the user interface? UI aspects were hardly considered Advanced Hypertext features intrude

into the Web

Motivation for Our Work

Current Link Interface Cannot support some of the new

features Is an accidental de facto standard

with serious drawbacks, e.g.:– underlined text has reduced readability,– overlapping link markers are not

possible,– no standard for links in graphics exists.

Vision

Systematically develop the user interface of the Web browsers of tomorrow

Learn from former systems Consider user interface research Create prototypes and do usability

tests

Vision

DepartureDeparture Destination ArrivalArrivalDestination

Based on Landow‘s “Rhetoric of Hypertext“

Departure

Where are the links? Locate and Select extended hyperlinks.

Links from different providers

Link-baseA

Link-baseB

Link Overload

It is known that underlining significantly reduces the readability of text. This is caused by the interference of the underline with descenders, letters like g, f and y. Furthermore, underlining emphasizes text exceedingly.

Hypertext stimulates an rather extensive way of reading. Readers often just scan the text for links. This is maybe a symptom of an era in which time seems to be the most valuable good.

Overlapping Markers

Mockup: Departure

Destination

Where shall I go? Information about destination

Selection of destination

Typed Links

Semantic link types give a better idea of the target

Types can also control the behavior

Types are only helpful if displayed or processed

XLink Human readable and computable types Links, arcs and resources are typed

A

B

Typed LinksB

A

Alternative Targets

Mockup: Destination

Arrival

Welcome!

Where am I ? Identify target Understand context

Target Anchors

Co-References

Mockup: Arrival

Conclusion

XLink opens many questions – many answers yet to be found

Further research and evaluations of hyperlink user interfaces required

Don‘t make same mistake again! New developments have to be accompanied by UI considerations