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landows maxims
Landow's "The Rhetoric of Hypermedia: Some Rules for Authors" makes a series of declarations about what hypertext must do.
These rules are all suggestions to aid the reader, and are an attempt to describe a system for making hypertext 'sensible'.
What is particularly intriguing about this list is its implicit declaration of what a hypertext system should do and how they should be written (to enable particular reading styles - what might be called a 'hypertextual reading').
But even more intriguing is the way that this list can be used to think about how the web is a hypertext system in terms of reading practice, and all those aspects where it is generally poor as such a system.
The need to write such a list of rules for 'design' should be recognised as a result of the reader's unfamiliarity with hypertext. Because of this the structure and use of any particular hypertext needs to be reasonably self evident (up to a point) so that it can be read, and not just become an experience of alienation. (In other words the interface should recede.)
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