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The Origins of the Underline As Visual Representation of the Hyperlink on the Web: a Case Study in Skeuomorphism The Origins of the Underline as Visual Representation of the Hyperlink on the Web: A Case Study in Skeuomorphism The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Romano, John J. 2016. The Origins of the Underline as Visual Representation of the Hyperlink on the Web: A Case Study in Skeuomorphism. Master's thesis, Harvard Extension School. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:33797379 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA The Origins of the Underline as Visual Representation of the Hyperlink on the Web: A Case Study in Skeuomorphism John J Romano A Thesis in the Field of Visual Arts for the Degree of Master of Liberal Arts in Extension Studies Harvard University November 2016 Abstract This thesis investigates the process by which the underline came to be used as the default signifier of hyperlinks on the World Wide Web. Created in 1990 by Tim Berners- Lee, the web quickly became the most used hypertext system in the world, and most browsers default to indicating hyperlinks with an underline. To answer the question of why the underline was chosen over competing demarcation techniques, the thesis applies the methods of history of technology and sociology of technology. Before the invention of the web, the underline–also known as the vinculum–was used in many contexts in writing systems; collecting entities together to form a whole and ascribing additional meaning to the content. This early usage made the underline a natural choice, semantically, as a hyperlink signifier. The technological context in which the web was created also played a significant role in the use of the underline. Early computer systems were limited in their display capacities and the interfaces created on them were influenced by these constraints. Specifically, the NeXT computer on which Berners-Lee developed the web made underlining text very simple using its Interface Builder software. The combination of the existing semantic meaning of the underline in written language, coupled with the affordances of contemporary computer systems resulted in the commonplace use of the underline to signify hyperlinks. Table of Contents I. Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 1 II. The Histories of the Underline and the Visual Representation of Hyperlinks ............... 9 The History of the Underline .................................................................................. 9 Ancient History ......................................................................................... 10 Paper Systems ........................................................................................... 16 The Typewriter .......................................................................................... 19 Telegraphy ................................................................................................ 24 Visual Representations of Hyperlinks Before the Web ........................................ 27 The Memex ............................................................................................... 30 The Typewriter, Part II ............................................................................. 31 Early Hypertext Systems........................................................................... 33 Display Adapters ....................................................................................... 40 III. The Invention of the Web and Underline as Hyperlink Semaphore ........................... 50 Contemporary Hypertext Systems ........................................................................ 50 HyperCard ................................................................................................. 50 Minitel ....................................................................................................... 55 Gopher....................................................................................................... 57 NeXTSTEP ........................................................................................................... 60 Tim Berners-Lee and the World Wide Web Standards ........................................ 66 HTML ....................................................................................................... 70 The Demonstration Browsers ................................................................... 76 Early Browsers ...................................................................................................... 80 Mosaic and its Spawn ........................................................................................... 82 Usability and the Future ........................................................................................ 85 IV. Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 89 Appendix ........................................................................................................................... 92 Bibliography ..................................................................................................................... 94 Chapter I Introduction The hyperlink is one of the most pervasive user interface elements on earth, featured on billions of web pages accessed daily by hundreds of millions of users. Despite its ubiquity, there has not been a complete investigation as to the origin and development of its visual representation on the web. In bringing to light the origin of the underline as a visual symbol for hyperlinks on the web, I researched the history of each of those domains: the underline, the hyperlink, and the web. I found three questions that were insufficiently addressed in the literature, one about each topic. The primary question–essentially, why did Tim Berners-Lee choose the underline to represent hyperlinks–will be addressed in Chapter III. Chapter II will address the other two questions, the answers to which should set the stage for the former and give insight into the milieu in which Berners-Lee was creating. The first of these questions relates to the underline: what did the underline represent before the invention of the web? To answer this question, I follow its use throughout the known history of writing and demonstrate that, while it has been used in many writing systems, it shares the common meaning of tying pieces of text together, allowing them to act as a group. This usage remains true across languages and various media of reproduction. Secondly, Chapter II will illuminate the visual representation of the hyperlink throughout the history of hypertext systems. Although eventually eclipsed in popularity by the web, early popular hypertext systems used a variety of modalities of indicating hyperlinks. An investigation of these systems 2 reveals that the use of the underline to represent links on the web was not the only possible choice. This investigation is also important because many other histories of hypertext choose to focus on the information architectural and information theoretical aspects of these hypertext systems, rather than the visual and presentational aspects. The answers to these two questions are interesting in their own right, but and they will also properly contextualize Berners-Lee’s invention of the web and his choice of the underline. The use of the underline on the web does not exist in a vacuum, but is part of an identifiable process within the discipline of graphic design. The history of graphic design spans many media and modes of mechanical reproduction–scribal transcription, movable type, offset printing, desktop publishing, web sites, and many more–each with their own distinct graphical identities and tropes. Each medium’s aesthetic is shaped by the interplay between the technical limitations of the novel medium and innovation on the part of designers, but another important factor is the established tropes of extant media. Frequently, designers and inventors incorporate aesthetic traits from earlier media into their designs for new media, even if those traits originally arose for technical reasons that many no longer apply; this process is termed skeuomorphism. The term was first coined by H. Colley March in the 1889 edition of the Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society and refers to the ornamental use of material aspects of artifacts which became unnecessary due to technical improvements (166). Many such examples are documented in the history of print; this thesis examines how skeuomorphism continues to function in the age of web publishing. The “default” solutions that define skeuomorphism have practical application in that they ease adoption 3 by “priming” users for a particular choice. To this end, this paper demonstrates how earlier media influenced the aesthetics of early web design, specifically in regard to hyperlink, by charting the history of both the underline and hypertext systems up to the point of their convergence. Early hypertext systems, and especially the web, created a new and distinct medium for sharing content and required novel graphic design treatments to convey their use. Hyperlinking is elemental to the medium and did not have direct precedence in previous
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