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Patterns of Hypertext PATTERNS OF HYPERTEXT Mark Bernstein Eastgate Systems, Inc. 134 Main Street Watertown MA 02 172 USA Tel: l-617-924-9044 E-mail: [email protected] ABSTRACT Since large linked constructs cannot be wished away, it is The apparent unruliness of contemporary hypertexts arises, time to develop a vocabulary of concepts and structures that in part, from our lack of a vocabulary to describe hypertext will let us understand the way today’s hypertexts and Web structures. From observation of a variety of actual sites work. Progress in the craft of writing depends, in part, hypertexts, we identify a variety of common structural on analysis and discussion of the best existing work. An patterns that may prove useful for description, analysis, and appropriate vocabulary will allow us both to discern and to perhaps for design of complex hypertexts. These patterns discuss patterns in hypertexts that may otherwise seem an include: impenetrable tangle or arbitrary morass. The reader’s experience of many complex hypertexts is not one of Cycle chaotic disorder, even though we cannot yet describe that Counterpoint structure concisely; the problem is not that the hypertexts Mirrorworld lack structure but rather that we lack words to describe it. Tangle Sieve LOOKING FOR PATTERNS This paper describes a variety of patterns of linkage Montage observed in actual hypertexts. Hypertext structure does not Split/Join reside exclusively in the topology of links nor in the Missing Link language of individual nodes, and so we must work toward Feint a pattern language through both topological and rhetorical observation. Instances of these patterns typically range in scope from a handful of nodes and links to a few hundred. KEYWORDS: design, patterns, pattern languages, rhetoric, These patterns [29][3] are components observed within hypertext structure, criticism, navigation hypertexts, rather than system facilities (see [67]) or plans of a complete work. Typical hypertexts contain instances of PATTERNSOFHYPERTEXT many different patterns, and often a single node or link may The complexity and unruliness of the complex webs of participate in several intersecting structures. links we create has frequently led to calls for “structured” or otherwise disciplined hypertext [33][20][75]. While calls I do not argue that the observed structural patterns are for clearer structure have tried to avoid, consolidate, or uniquely desirable, that superior patterns cannot be devised, minimize links, it is now clear that hypertext cannot easily or indeed that the writers of these hypertexts meant to use turn its back on complex link structures. Where it was once these patterns at all. I do propose that by considering these feared that the cognitive burdens of large, irregular link patterns, or patterns like them, writers and editors may be networks would overwhelm readers, we find in practice that led to more thoughtful, systematic, and sophisticated myriad casual readers flock to the docuverse. The growth of designs. These patterns are offered, then, as a step toward literary and scholarly hypertext, the evolution of the Web, developing a richer vocabulary of hypertext structure. and the economics of link exchange all assure the long-term importance of links. Examples are drawn from published stand-alone hypertexts as well as from the Web. Web sites are readily accessible but volatile: a site which today illustrates one structure may Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies be unrecognizable tomorrow. Published hypertexts are less are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that accessible, but are also more permanent. Moreover, some copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. To copy important patterns depend on dynamic links - links which otherwise, to republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, depend on the reader’s past interactions. The Web itself is requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. state-free, and while various implementations of state- HyperText 98 Pittsburgh PA USA Copyright ACM 1998 O-89791-972--6/98/ 6...$5.00 dependent behaviors for the Web have been proposed, 21 state-dependent behavior remains an exceptional case in fear, the moaning snow, may be the wrack left after the car Web hypertexts. (and the bodies) have been removed. Hypertext, Joyce writes elsewhere, demands rereading [39]. Measured and Some pattern examples are drawn from literary fiction. I do planned repetition can reinforce the writer’s message: end- not believe these patterns to be useful exclusively for of-chapter summaries and ballad refrains, for example, are fiction; rather, a variety of economic and cultural factors a common feature of the pedagogical literature of print and sometimes encourage experimentation in narrative rather oral culture. Cycles thus lend themselves not only to a than technical writing or journalism. Moreover, hypertext variety of postmodern effects [61], but also to familiar fiction tends to be written for general audiences and may writerly motifs: remain available indefinitely, while specialized reference manuals and Help systems may be short-lived and less Of recursus, there is hallucination, deju vu, readily available to the general reader. Nor does our interest compulsion, ri& ripple, canon, isobar, duydream, and in structural vocabulary necessarily imply a structural& or theme and variation...Of timeshift there is the death of post-structuralist stance; we need to describe phenomena, Mrs. Ramsay and the near disintegration of the whatever our theoretical beliefs [48][ 11. house...Leopold Bloom on a walk, and a man who wants to say he may have seen his son die. Of the Two patterns - Tree and Sequence - have been described renewal there is every story not listed previously. [39] many times in the hypertext literature [ 16][64]. Both are useful, indeed indispensable, and can be found in almost In Douglas’s Cycle [23], the appearance of an unbroken any hypertext. cycle signals closure, the end of a section or the exhaustion of the hypertext. CYCLE In the Cycle, the reader returns to a A Web Ring is a grand cycle, a cycle that links entire previously-visited node and eventually hypertexts in a tour of a subject. Hypertexts in a Web ring departs along a new path. Cycles create agree, in essence, to share readers. Though largely recurrence [ 121 and so express the presence u unheralded in the research literature, Web rings, C.R.E.W. of structure. Kolb’s Socrates In The and related compacts have proved central to the hypertext Labyrinth [45] discusses the role of the economy. Hypertexts concerning specialized interests - Cycle in argumentation, showing how obscure actors, or World War I memoirs - may promise hypertext cycles emerge naturally from little direct professional or commercial importance, and traditional argumentative forms. Cyclical repetition also alone they cannot easily find an audience. Cooperation modulates the experience of the hypertext [44], among related sites, however, creates self-organizing zones emphasizing key points while relegating others to the of autonomous but interrelated activities on a common background. Writers may break a cycle automatically by theme or toward a common goal. The cyclical structure of using conditional links, or may use breadcrumbs [7] to Web rings tends to promote equality of access: each guide the user to depart along a new trajectory. Relying on participant gains one inbound link, at the cost of offering breadcrumbs to break cycles is common on the Web. one outbound link. Alternative structures (such as central directories and search engines) can also offer access, but In Joyce’s Cycle, the reader rejoins a the cyclical structure of the ring keeps each participant previously-visited part of the hypertext and equal and resists the tendency to concentrate attention at the continues along a previously-traversed directories themselves. trajectory through one or more spaces before the cycle is broken. Revisiting a previously- A contour [ 12][40] is formed where cycles visited scene, moreover, may itself provide a impinge on each other, allowing free fresh experience because the new context can change the movement within and between the paths meaning of a passage even though the words remain the defined by each cycle. Movement among same. The opening lines of afternoon, a story [38], when the cycles of a contour is easy, and first seen, establish a chilly climate, poetic and infrequent links allow more restricted overwrought: movement from one contour to another. By fr’ve the sun sets and the afternoon melt freezes again ucross the blacktop into crystal octopi and palms COUNTERPOINT of ice-- rivers und continents beset by fear, and we In Counterpoint, two voices alternate, walk out to the car, the snow moaning beneath our interleaving themes or welding together boots.. theme and response. Counterpoint often gives a clear sense of structure, a resonance Later, we may again encounter the same scene. No longer of call and response reminiscent at once of does it serve as an establishing frame; later, we may liturgy and of casual dialogue. Counterpoint recognize that the winter scene the narrator describes might frequently arises naturally from character-centric be the wreck of his ex-wife’s car, that the continents of narratives; for example, Forwurd Anywhere [54] uses a 22 series of e-mail letters between its two central characters to long been used for quotation, both epigraphic and ironic explore their differences and establish their connections. [ 131. Links in Larsen’s Samplers appear in a dialog box - a conventional list of links that Storyspace authors can use Counterpoint may be fine-grained. In Bubbe’s Buck Porch, to build an ad hoc multi-tailed link. The dialog is designed Abbe Don’s Bubbe moves constantly between tales of the to be purely functional, showing a list of links by pathname distant past and tales of her own present, telling her great- and destination, but Larsen has chosen path names so that granddaughter at once what it is like to be old and what it this list itself can be read as an interstitial poem.
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