Links Destroy Flow

I've tried two ways of writing: writing on the computer and writing on paper. Paper is much better. (IsAnythingBetterThanPaper?)

I think the reason why is that the presence of icons and hyperlinks encourage me to jump around on a computer. I can surf for hours, clicking link after link after link.

Paper prevents me from clicking away from what I'm supposed to be doing. That also encourages me to keep my project in such shape that it is worth working on. I've trashed many a program by working on it on the computer. That damned unrecoverable delete key.

HyperlinksSupportSeeping?, I would say. You are 'encouraged' to follow the hyperlinks, you say. Don't kill the messenger. If what you were supposed to be doing was interesting enough, then you would not click away. -- OleAndersen

Hyperlinks are inserted in a writing by the writer. If he has written well, with mind not only on the subject, but the audience as well, he will insert hyperlinks as references to external information which will support and extend what he continues to write. They often exist to point to information or resources which support or explain a concept or idea. The placement of hyperlinks is important and distract or destroy flow only if used as a device to give meaning. Often the writing is not as interesting as the hyperlink and the click away becomes a oneway exit. This is avoided in good writing where the content encourages a return from the hyperlink. Good writing attracts interest.

Writing and presenting things in a single logical order is difficult enough. Allowing the reader to go off in a myriad of directions makes any complex logical train of thought impossible to express. Consider limiting your references to a bibliography at the end. --WayneMack

The purpose of hyperlinks is to support the text written or to reference as a footnote does, the writer does not have to use hyperlinks, that is the choice made at the time of composition. The criticism is one of style and not direction. Some writers like to make it easier for their readers to understand "new" terms, but do not wish to bore those who already have the "new" term down pat with the insertion of a definition or clarification that they do not need. This wiki and most hyperlinked sites are created on the fly and are not subject to a rigorous peer review. Editing takes place, but it is an incremental process that some may describe as factoring. That some use hyperlinks, and that some readers do not know how to read a hyperlinked document is not a sufficient reason to limit the referencing in a document to footnotes or bibliographies. Hyperlinks are useful references which while interrupting the flow, increase understanding. Writers need to learn how to write hyperlinked documents (if they use the device) and readers must also learn how to return original without digressing past the first link. If further following of the link might be desired, it can easily be bookmarked or written down.

It would be possible to have a browser that only showed hyperlinks when you took some particular action to have them shown. (Didn't HyperCard only show links when you held down one of the special keys?) -- ChrisBaugh

HyperCard did indeed, I think it was the Control Key. You can 'hide' your hyperlinks by setting the preferences on most browsers. In my version of InternetExploder, I can set 'unvisited link' to the same color as 'text' and deselect the 'Always Underline Links' option. You can still navigate through links by using the tab key (which changes focus to the next hyperlink).

Not all "texts" are or should be linear.

Dreams, thoughts, fantasies, daydreams, and similar activities - the fabric of meaning - are inherently non-linear. If media exists to communicate meaning, and "meaning" itself is non-linear, then surely non-linear media will ultimately prove more effective at its purpose. Media, until the computer, were inherently linear. Anything denotable - scrolls, stories, musical scores, plays, novels, narratives, etc. - was linear because of the constraints of the media. Our intuition about "flow", "logical order", "organization", and so on is the result of millennia of conditioning by linear media. We are now in the infancy of non-linear media.

As print media matured, various mechanisms for simulating non-linearity emerged. Writers such as Faulkner ("The Sound and the Fury") Irving ("The World According to Garp") learned to manipulate time, viewpoint, and context in their novels. The redacters of the Hebrew Scriptures intentionally maintained multiple parallel threads that retold familiar stories in interacting ways. Newspapers and magazines invented the "sidebar".

Hypermedia is inherently non-linear. While it supports linear flow (not just text, but also video and audio), it can do much more than that. Some "flow" is turbulent. Some flow is chaotic. Flow includes eddies, swirls, backwaters, floods, tidal waves, and huge expanses of flat, still, mirror-smooth blackness.

So I argue that HyperlinksModelFlow?.

Except that humans can only think in one direction at a time. -- NickThomas?

Links in a document destroy the flow of that document and should be generally avoided when you want to make your document the entire focus of the reader. A resume would be a good example of a document in which you should never use links.

I've found that spawning new browser windows helps preserve the flow a bit. I use Galeon at home and that particular browser can be set to spawn tabs when you click on a link. I find that to be even more handy, as I don't end up with 14 browser windows open. You can also open new browser windows too, so you can keep unrelated documents in different windows and related documents in tabs in the same window.

-- BruceIde

I agree with the overall premise, but not with the example. Links in a resume to web pages of former employers or products that you've worked on can be beneficial: they encourage the reader to look at those things immediately, rather than just saying "Maybe I'll check these references later.". A resume generally isn't narrative, and there is little "flow" to be broken. -- KrisJohnson

Galeon really changed the way I use the web. Links used to be something that took my attention *right now*. With Galeon, I can (middle) click on them and they come up in the background. They don't interrupt me. I continue reading the current page, marking the links that I'd like to read later, and when I get to the end of the page, I can visit all those links. It works great on Wiki's RecentChanges page. -- AmitPatel

Acorn's !Browse has the same feature, as I mention in the page about IdealPageSize. personally I think that when they're used properly LinksCreateFlow, because they stop you from having to skip text that's relevant but not part of the main focus. They allow you to put expansions or side-comments somewhere else where they can be checked later or now according to the reader's requirements.

I agree with the comments:

Interesting since 2 of the contributions are in favour of links and 2 are against.

... too many links makes the document hard(er) to follow and can lead to LostInSpace? syndrome as reader jumps around.

But the idea is either not to follow the links immediately, or to open them in a new window. That avoids the LostInSpace? syndrome. Simply having the link isn't the problem - following them indiscriminately is.

One easy thing, with Wiki technologies, is to use the WikiWord RegularExpression to load the links into an array and have that as a drop down/css-flow-inset box, allowing the flow of the document to be preserved but also providing an index.

Alternatively put a custom class on the links and use an HTML button to toggle the visibility of that class using CSS styles, simple. In the mean time right-click and open-in-new-window works well.