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The significance of navigation and interactivity design for readers’ responses to interactive narrative Some conclusions from an empirical study of readers’ responses by James Pope 1. Introduction |
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One outspoken opponent of
hypertext, Laura Miller, declared in 1998 that ‘what
the laboratory of hyperfiction
demonstrates… is how alienated academic literary
criticism is from actual readers and their desires’.
And it is still the case that, within the
literature of the debate around the likely development of
hypertext fiction, the reactions of ‘ordinary’
readers (as opposed to academics or journalists) are
significantly under-represented (Gee 2001; Livingstone 2004; Miall
2003). The study reported here
sought to begin to address this problem noted by Miller,
setting out with the belief that writers and readers of
interactive narratives will benefit from the findings
uncovered by a systematic study of readers’ responses
to the form. Another trigger for the study is the fact that, despite the
initial excited fanfare and discussion, and a dynamic
creative output from writers which continues to flourish,
interactive fiction appears to be of interest largely only
to ‘experts’, i.e. academics, journalists, and
writers themselves (Campbell 2003). Ordinary readers appear
to be scarce, and that raises interesting questions. A clue might be found in a
comment from hypertext pioneer Shelley Jackson: Despite being around for
twenty years, hypertext fiction is still in its
embryonic stage, both in terms of its relationship to its
audience and in the development of its medium. It is a
significant new art form because of the highly innovative
narrative structures and delivery platforms it embraces
(Bolter 2001; Douglas 2000; Landow
1997; Jackson 1997; Kendall and Réty
2000; Murray 1997a, 1997b), and yet in many examples
available online or through the only commercial publisher, Eastgate
Systems, the narrative and the delivery platform are not
happily wedded. It is the look and usability of the delivery
platform, the interface, that this
paper discusses, using data from the empirical study as
supporting evidence for the conclusions offered. In
a survey of thirty research studies into hypertext usability
Jakob Nielsen (1989) noted, amongst other
findings, that online fiction was perceived by readers to
‘perform’ 24% as well as print fiction. Nielsen’s special interest is in how
the human-computer interface organises and delivers
navigation tools and desired information to the user, and in
this relationship hypertext fiction struggles. Hypertext is
indeed often seen to ‘perform’ badly for readers (Blanton 1996, Birkerts
1997, Miall 1998, Selig 2000), and
yet, though there is some mention of the interface
and related navigation factors, for example in Landow
(2004), and in Kendall and Réty
(2000), there is only one empirical, case-specific study of
the relationship between interface design and the experience
of hypertext reading (Gee 2001). Overall, very little is
said in the hypertext literature about interface design and
its influence upon narrative structures and the reading
experience, a seeming highly significant gap in the current
state of the debate which my study sought to address. A further issue my study explored is the
apparent failure in hypertext criticism to bring together
previously disparate disciplines, which hypertext fiction
itself, by nature, blends. There is a tradition of empirical
‘usability’ testing in software and game design,
and there is a history of studies of readers in the field of
literature studies (e.g It is clear that the physical medium for
the delivery of any narrative, in print or in digital form,
is influential upon the reading experience (Cavallo
and Chartier 1997). In hypertext,
the interface is an integral and crucial part of the
narrative design, and therefore of the reading and enjoyment
process (Barrett 2000; Douglas 1994; Gee 2001; Landow
2004; Miall 2003, Murray 1997b; Nielsen 1990). Again,
there is a lack of empirical data available in the
literature to help us understand what aspects of interface
design enhance or hinder the reader’s experience:
‘we need more empirically supported guidelines to
inform design decisions’ (Smart et al 2000). The study looked at other aspects of the hypertext
reader’s experience, not reported here (to do with
multi-linear narrative structures, reader expectations,
reading behaviours, and the ergonomics of new media): these
will be reported in forthcoming papers. For this paper,
covering only the interface, I argue that the design of the
interface and its navigation systems are of absolutely
crucial significance for readers’ engagement and
absorption with the narrative. The
empirical study from which the data and discussion in this
paper derive was conducted during 2006/7: it recorded and
analysed the responses of 36 readers to a range of hypertext
narratives. Readers were monitored during initial
‘think-aloud’ encounters with the selected pieces,
then questionnaired, and finally
involved in focussed discussion groups. The seven hypertexts
investigated were afternoon, a story (Joyce
1987), These Waves of Girls (Fisher
2001), LOveOne (Molloy1994),
253 (Ryman 1996),
The Virtual Disappearance of Miriam (Bedford and
Campbell 2000), Amelie (Ansutegui 2005), and Of Day, Of
Night (Heyward 2004). A more detailed description of the method
used for the study can be found in ‘A Future for
Hypertext Fiction’ (Pope 2006). We
now consider, in two categories, the findings and
conclusions from the empirical study: interactivity and
navigation overlap in theory and practice, but the
separation here makes for a more coherent discussion of
their respective features. It
is clear that reader expectation plays an important part in
the response to these pieces, no matter whether the
hypertext is the text-only format of afternoon or the
graphics and video form of Megan Heyward’s Of Day,
Of Night. Every reader brings a ‘mindset’ or a
preconception, and this affects their behaviour with the
interface, and their attitude to the effort required to find
out how that interface works. Aarseth’s (1997) concept of non-trivial effort
seems highly significant here, especially when that effort
interrupts absorption (Nell 1988) in the narrative. For the
readers in my study, hypertext interfaces appear to disrupt
expectation more than an equally idiosyncratic interface in
an information-based space or a game would, because of the
clash of media and text forms, reflecting Douglas and Hargadon’s
(2001) theorising around schemas. In hypertext, reading and
narrative expectations clash with interface expectations,
setting up awkwardness, uncertainty, unwelcome effort, and
ultimately some reported high levels of frustration and
negativity. Thus, in the case of afternoon, a
story, LOveOne, and
These Waves of Girls the readers were all trying to
reconcile their expectations of narrative and reading
behaviours, with their expectations of usability for a
screen-based medium; essentially they were looking for a
reading activity and simultaneously a web-style
interactivity. The two behaviours rarely lived comfortably
together. Where the interface design was more
overtly visual and thus web-like, there were fewer reported
difficulties with interactivity itself: readers offered
positive reactions to many aspects of interactivity in the
cases of 253, The Virtual Disappearance of
Miriam, Amelie, and Of Day Of
Night. The reason for this would seem to be that these
pieces used a design schema that more fully met design
expectations for web and other interactive media.
253 seemed to sit between the two ends of the
text-visual continuum, and the responses were similarly
mid-way between an acceptance of web-style design and a
reasonably comfortable reaction to reading small chunks of
linked text. Readers did comment that the design of
253 could have been more attractive, but in terms of
usability, it was seen as satisfactory, employing
web-standards in a simple and mostly clear way. But, even if the interface was attractive
and easy to use, and even if interactivity was perceived as
enjoyable in itself, the interface could not be considered
effective if the interactivity design did not facilitate the
apprehension of an engaging story. This was clearly seen in
the responses to Amelie and
Of Day, Of Night, where, although the readers liked
the interface design and enjoyed exploring, nonetheless a
coherent story did not readily emerge, and overall reactions
to those pieces were not entirely positive.
The one piece which seemed to ‘succeed’ more than it
failed was The Virtual Disappearance of Miriam. This
appeared to be well received by its readers because its
interactivity was mainly clearly indicated, easy to find and
use, enjoyable in itself, and crucially, developed the
story, not distracting from the reading of the story. On the basis of the data, it seems
reasonable to suggest that interface design should use
web design conventions for interactivity as far as possible,
in order to minimise the levels of non-trivial effort
required, and thus making access to the narrative as
straightforward as possible for the reader. This is
not to suggest that writers cannot experiment with design
and/or narrative form, but they must be aware that
hypertext, in its newness and unfamiliarity to the great
majority of readers, places heavy demands on a reader’s
attention already, without unnecessary work being added by
sloppy design. Furthermore, the data makes it clear that
design needs to be integral to the narrative. The
design now is the narrative: words, images,
interactivity, typefaces, colours, the visibility of
hotspots and links are all signifying elements in the
storytelling process in hypertext fiction, as Landow
(1997) suggests. The empirical evidence of this study
reinforces Landow’s point,
and indeed makes it an absolutely essential requirement of
hypertext narrative design, in conception and delivery. The data showed how some readers slipped
into a kind of play mode either because the story was hard
to find because of poor interface design (e.g.
afternoon, These Waves Of
Girls, LOveOne) or
because the interface was very busy (e.g. Miriam, Amelie),
or difficult to use (Of Day, Of Night). Some readers
reported that they were distracted from reading by
playing with the interface to see what it would do,
because they actually enjoyed that activity, as in
the case of Amelie. If we
wish readers of hypertext fictions to be audiences rather
than game-players, the data in this study suggest that
authors must strive to achieve a balance between an
interface that is visually and operationally appealing, and
a reading experience that is absorbing. We are seeing that concepts from
previously un-associated disciplines are all coming into
play in the act of reading hypertext. Balance between
interface-playing and reading absorption seems to depend on
the optimum mix of interface usability, (see for example the
work of Campbell 2003; Gee 2001; Murray 1997b; and Nielsen
1989,1990), the psychological
effort/reward balance (spoken of by amongst others
Aarseth1997; Conklin 1987; Csikszentmihalyi
1975, 2002; and Nell 1988), and the interplay between reader
and narrative structure (where we might utilise the work of
‘traditional’ reading theory, e.g. Iser
1976; Fish 1970,1980; Brooks 1984;
and new-media theorists such as Douglas 2000; Miall
1999; Miall and Dobson 2001; Miall
and Kuiken 1994, 1995; and Murray
1997a, b).
The data suggest that the interface must be simultaneously
appealing and non-distracting. There is very
little in the reviewed literature, apart from
The first and most obvious step for writers is to make sure
that interactive areas, whether those are links to other
parts of the story, or menu options for chapters, or simply
interactions such as switching sound on and off, should be
clearly identified as such. It is again obvious that extant
web conventions could be used, but there is nothing in the
data to suggest that readers could not cope with newness, as
long as it is clear what on the screen is hyper-active. This
would have removed several negative comments about LOveOne,
Miriam, Amelie, and
Of Day, Of Night. If
interactivity is clearly presented, then the interface has a
chance of being simultaneously engaging and cognitively (in
terms of the effort/reward balance) invisible. Although
advocates of hypertext narrative (Bolter 2001, Jackson 1996,
Landow 1997, for example) have enthusiastically
argued that it offers the reader more creative input, the
difficult balance between the positive rewards of
creative control and the negative effects of unwanted
effort, is an aspect barely discussed in the literature,
though Murray (1997b) and Ryan (2006) acknowledge the issue. Whereas agency (Murray 1997b), i.e. the
user’s ability to affect the development of the
narrative, is taken for granted as a game-playing essential,
in hypertext it seems that there is a potential conflict
between the offer of control and the reader’s desire to
be taken along in the author’s created world. The data
showed that once control is offered it opens a Pandora’s
box of desire for more control and ever more
narrative-directing input from the reader-user, which the
hypertexts in this study did not provide. Even if hypertext
did provide to the reader full control of the narrative,
this may clash with the generation of reading absorption,
along the same lines of the tension as we have seen above on
usability and on stimulus versus distraction. The data strongly supports Miall in several of his papers (1998, 1999, Miall and Dobson 2001) has suggested that
interactivity disrupts the act of imaginative reading
necessary for literary pleasure; Birkerts (1997) has also argued that
interactivity and narrative art cannot co-exist; Ryan (2006)
doubts if we can expect to find familiar narrative pleasures
in hypertext. There is evidence to show how poor interface
design can create this tension between agency and
absorption. However, the solution to this problem is
suggested in the nature of the comments from my readers.
The readers who commented on this issue all talked about the
need for control to be given such that it progressed the
narrative at all times. Whether that control is the offer of
hyper-linked words, or animated images, whatever the reader
does to the screen should develop the story or the
interactivity quickly becomes game-playing and/or the story is
lost. In the same way that too much activity on screen can
push reading to the background, inappropriate or inadequate
control can lead to reading being pushed out. Either of
these poor design characteristics will spoil or even
terminate the reading experience. For example, the video clips in Of Day,
Of Night would be considered inappropriate, despite the
fact that they clearly were part of the narrative, because
they could not be controlled easily and quickly. The point
here is that an element of control has been offered in order
for the reader to access the video and watch it, but
inadequate control has been offered in order for the reader
to stop or maybe rewind the video. If a reader is obliged to
watch every video in full every time the piece is run, then
inadequate control has been provided, because every reader
will expect to be able to control a video’s playback. There is also the suggestion within the
data that there is an optimum amount of choice to be
given if the narrative experience is to be maintained. In
These Waves of Girls, for example, too many links on
text simply led to choice overload and the perception in my
reader-participants that there was no story at all. In
afternoon, the links were too hard to find, thus the
opposite problem was occurring, but leading to the same
result for the readers – a narrative that was too
difficult to generate, and a story that was too difficult to
discover. The Virtual Disappearance of Miriam and
Of Day, Of Night seemed to be reaching a satisfactory
balance: both of those pieces only offered choices that took
the reader to consequential and sequentially logical parts
of the narrative. Narrative development is the key concern
for the readers in this study, and should drive all design
decisions, whether of visual or multimedia effects, screen
layout, availability of menus, placement of links on text,
or use of images as hotspots. Control must only be
offered where it is helpful for navigation or essential for
the development of the narrative. It might even
be that authors will have to rein in their narrative
ambitions for the time being until they have mastered the
art of offering agency within a tightly organised narrative
in a way that readers can cope with. A good example of this
balance, beginning to emerge in new interactive fiction
online, is Kate Pullinger’s Inaminate
Alice: plentiful interaction does not take the reader
away from an emerging story. The
data from my study demonstrates that the functionality of
links in hypertext fiction is of a different nature from its
equivalent in information web-spaces, creating new
potential problems of two kinds, adding new definition to
previously published discussions (Bernstein 2000; Calvi
1999; Landow 1997): Firstly, in ‘conventional’ web
spaces, links are clearly identifiable, by either the
web-standard underlining of an active word, or highlighting;
or, if an icon or image serves as a link, by a clear visual
change to the cursor, usually to a hand symbol. In
information space, if a link were to be obscure or even
hidden it would be rendered totally pointless and useless.
However, my readers’ responses showed that, because
hypertext narrative artists are attempting to be original
and innovative, they are not necessarily using such
recognisable hyper-linking signals. The evidence from the data is conclusive
here: for screen-based fiction, screen-conventional
linking iconography must be used, if the reader is not to be
overcome with too many convention-breaking demands on their
attention. This is predicted by work from usability
studies (e.g. Pace 2003, Thimbleby
2000), from Conklin’s (1987) conceptualising of
cognitive overload, Nell’s (1988) theory of the
effort-reward relationship in ludic
reading, and Csikszentmihalyi’s
flow concept (1975): these theoretical explanations are
borne out strongly by the evidence of this study, and would
appear to refute Landow’s
(1997) contention that the indeterminacy and challenge of
hypertext narrative offers the natural and preferable
form of reading. Where
links were not clearly indicated, readers not only reacted
as they might in an information-space, i.e. with confusion
and frustration, but they also were likely to give up their
reading because the narrative failed to develop. In an
information-seeking activity, a reader will look for
alternative links until the desired information has been
found – the desire to find out is the driver; but in
the reading of hypertext fiction, the motivation to keep
reading has to be generated by what each link delivers when
it is followed. The desired ‘information’ is the
unfolding narrative and if that does not emerge as each link
is chosen, then the desire to ‘find out’ is killed
off. Secondly, and inextricably connected to
the first point, links are, as some writers (e.g. Calvi
1999, Landow 2004, Kendall and Réty
2000) have argued, highly significant in the telling of the
story, and so to discuss the design and functionality of
links is also to discuss their role and effectiveness in
allowing the reader to ‘navigate’ the plot. It
is impossible to separate links as navigation tool from
links as story-telling device. The data show that links
need to take readers to places in the narrative that makes
sense to them, in terms of an unfolding story. Figure 1
below shows that across all the hypertexts studied, readers
use linking as a part of the story reading experience: We
see from the data in Figure 1 that readers are mostly
searching for the story when they choose which links to
follow, and it therefore would seem highly desirable for
writers to design links with that specific desire in mind.
Future research in this area might well use this data
alongside Miall’s work on
literary foregrounding (Miall
2000, Miall and Kuiken
1999,) to support writers in understanding how links may be
chosen and reacted to by readers. It is important to note
also that the visual hotspot as link in examples such as
Of Day, Of Night, Amelie and Miriam, as
distinct from words as links, must still signify story
association and development:
images in hypertext fiction are part of foregrounding, to use Miall’s
term, because the reader will assume that every
hyper-active element is in some way relevant to the
developing narrative. Interface design must take
this assumption into account. Jakob
Nielsen’s (1990) navigation principles still hold good
across a wide range of interactive media; and so, below,
Nielson’s key navigational ‘rules’ are
applied to the hypertext fictions examined, in part to
ascertain how far interactive narratives deploy effective
navigation tools, and in part to begin to understand how
hypertext narratives are different from other interactive
media so far studied by the web design community; I argue
that hypertext fiction has particular features which require
‘special’ thinking in regard to navigation. Clear
and easily accessed backtracking is required, as Nielsen
says: the reader needs to be able to go back in step-by-step
order (a trail), and out of order (using a map for example)
to anywhere in the narrative that they have so far
experienced. None of the hypertexts studied offered a truly
flexible backtrack facility: for example, afternoon
had its ‘history’ menu, but this did not allow
readers to go freely to any section at any time; These
Waves of Girls relied on the web browser alone, limiting
movement therefore to a step-by-step backtrack rather than
free access to any section. The analogues to this are
obvious: with a print book, the reader can easily go to any
page forward or backward; and of course in the case of a
book, spatial orientation and narrative orientation are
the same thing, assuming the reader reads the book in
page-numerical order. In the hypertext environment, where
habits from reading now must co-exist with habits from
browsing, a backtrack facility should offer a reading trail
and a map, both easily accessed. Nielsen (1990) talks
about free movement being appropriate to need.
In a web browsing scenario, the need is typically to find
information; in a narrative context the need is to achieve a
familiarity with the fictional world, to gain sympathy or
antipathy with characters, to build a consistency of
apprehension of the concepts and events of the fictional
world. Effective free movement (including backtracking)
in hypertext therefore would ideally enable the reader to go
anywhere they wanted in the site, but more importantly, the
data suggest, to go wherever they want to in the narrative. However, there is a tricky balance to be
achieved: the data suggest that free movement is not a
facility to be offered without careful consideration of its
effect on the aesthetic appreciation of narrative structure.
A limited range of choices for movement will reduce the
reader’s cognitive overload, allow for more easy
movement, which in turn will lead to more satisfying grasp
of the narrative. To illustrate this point, we can refer
to These Waves Of Girls, which was considered by my
readers to present a baffling range of choices for movement
which actually led to a stifling of movement altogether:
once easy movement around the ‘book’ is blocked,
it is clear that readers quite quickly lose interest in the
story, whether that be one that Fisher has designed, or
indeed one which the readers create via their interaction
with the work. The
data in this study uncover a feature of the hypertext
experience that has not been covered in any depth in the
literature so far. Site location is not necessarily the
same as narrative location. The extra facility (demand)
of interactivity and the intangibility of the virtual
book-space change this equation, so well-established in
print, between ‘site’ location and narrative
location. In hypertext, site orientation and narrative
orientation must be considered as a unity in the design of
the navigation system. A navigation system in an
information-giving website need not concern itself with this
correlation because the user creates his or her own ‘narrative’ as they search for
information. In the case of fiction however, there is,
certainly for the readers in my study, still the assumption
and desire for an author-created narrative, delivering the
underlying story, which the reader will eventually be able
to discern. Despite what many advocates of the post-structuralist/postmodern
view of the author-reader relationship argue, the readers in
this study all wanted the author’s design to
eventually be accessible, since that is what they see as a
core pleasure. So, navigation must allow the reader to
know were he is in the site (the book) and in the
narrative, and these two orientations in turn allow the
reader to apprehend the story. If one or
both of these orientations is hard to gain, or conversely,
easy to lose, the reader’s sense of narrative and thus
story is also disrupted. Whereas Miall
(1998, 1999, and with Dobson 2001) has argued that
interactivity itself is the cause of disruption to
imaginative engagement with the narrative, my data suggest
that interactivity need not be a problem of this kind, if
orientation is not threatened. Navigation systems are
clearly at the heart of this issue.
Figure 3 below illustrates the interesting relationship
between orientation factors and apprehension of the story.
Participants were asked if they knew where they were in the
site at all times, if they knew where they were in the
story, and if they would be able to summarise the story to a
friend (an indication of story apprehension). We
see that there is some interesting and tantalising
correlation between the orientation factors and story
apprehension: in the case of afternoon, zero
orientation in site and story was reflected in only a third
of the readers saying they could summarise the story;
similarly in the case of Amelie
and These Waves of Girls, poor story orientation was
reflected by only one of either group saying they could
summarise the story. For LOveOne
none of the readers knew where they were in the site, or the
story, and none of them could summarise the story. In the
case of Of Day, Of Night,
though four of the six participants (66.6%) knew were they
were in the site, only one (16.6%) knew where he was in the
story, and only one could summarise the story. For 253 we see that site and story
orientation are exactly matched by story apprehension (50%
positive response). Finally, comparison with Miriam
further demonstrates the emerging principle that orientation
factors and story apprehension are interlinked: in
Miriam high site and story orientation were matched
by high ability to summarise the story. Significant for
future writers and designers is the indication in the data
that good site orientation does not inevitably
lead to good story orientation, but poor site orientation
will always lead to poor story orientation, and in turn poor
grasp of story. The latter point is demonstrated in the
response of readers of These Waves of Girls and Amelie: although the navigation systems
allow free and easy movement around the site, they do not
provide sufficient tools for the reader to keep track of
where he/she is, has been or can go, or where he/she is in
relation to material already seen or yet to be seen. Thus a
sense of place in the site was not created, and a consequent
loss of narrative place ensued also. The influence of the
hyper-link applies here also – but in terms of
navigation alone, it is apparent that navigation tools need
to provide both linear movement and non-linear movement, and
provide a total command of the space, combined with a
continual ‘update’ of the narrative context.
The most positive, though not perfect,
exemplar for this requirement would be The Virtual
Disappearance Of Miriam, which combines a relatively
straightforward and linear plot, with web-familiar
navigation, including clear book-like chapter menus, and a
simple ‘back to home’ link. These features enabled
readers to trace their path through the story and around the
whole site without becoming lost in the negative sense: this
in turn enhanced the experience of becoming lost in the
positive sense!
The data suggest that for readers to enjoy the experience
of free movement (interactivity at its best according to
Nielsen) and of narrative absorption (pleasurable reading at
its best according to Nell), both aspects of orientation
should be satisfied. Apart from a very small number of
exceptions, the ability of readers to grasp the story
will only be seen where both site and story orientation
needs are satisfied. Good navigation design can provide
security of place; good narrative design, facilitated by
good navigation design, can create imaginative security.
Several critics talk about this possibility as something for
a somewhat distant future (Murray 1997b, Douglas and Hargadon
2001, Miall 2003), but the data
here suggest it is possible now, given an understanding of
the reading experience. Closely
connected to orientation issues is Nielsen’s view that
overview facilities should be offered. Several comments were made by readers to
the effect that they would like to know not only where they
are in the context of the site and the story, but that they
would like to know the size of the reading commitment.
Overview options of various kinds could offer this, but the
data shows that, in the case of the hypertexts studied at
least, (and in very few, if any, examples currently
available on the web) these were not provided with effective
functionality, and we can see that this lack only added to
the sense of displacement the majority of readers felt. Of the seven hypertexts studied,
afternoon and Amelie
did not provide any single overview (sometimes referred by
readers to as a home page), and this was seen by the
respective readers as a deficit. LOveOne and
These Waves of Girls did offer a ‘contents’
page but these failed to impress because either those
contents pages were hard to access once navigated away from,
or because the narrative was so fractured by the navigation
system that readers could not make productive use of the
contents page even if they could find it. In
the case of 253 there was an overview map, and
accordingly this piece was seen as relatively easy to move
around. Of Day, Of Night
actually relied on the reader returning regularly
to the homepage map (because otherwise the narrative did not
progress), and readers here were aware of how much there was
to see; but the author designed the ‘return to
map’ link to be hidden unless scrolled over, a design
mistake that could be easily rectified. Once again, the only piece in this study
that fulfilled the overview requirement adequately was
Miriam, which provided a simple link to the chapter
menu from any screen anywhere in the whole piece. On the
other hand, Miriam does not offer a link to
individual chapters except from the home page, and
once the home page is returned to, each chapter must be read
from the beginning again. This means that the overview is
less useful in practice than it might be, a weakness that was noted by the study
participants.
It appears obvious that a simple solution to this problem
would be to ensure that the home page or overview menu is available at
any point in the reader’s ‘journey’ through
the hypertext. A further aspect of overview raised by the
data is that some visual representation of how much has been
read of the whole was asked for several times across all the
seven hypertexts. None of the pieces studies offered this
facility, and again it seems obvious to say that here is
another very simple solution to an important issue. The only
example this researcher has so far found of an
hypertext with an always-available home page, and a
progressive bookmark is The Mobius Case, an unpublished Masters project
by Rutger Van Dijk (2005)
at Though
Nielsen argues that the book metaphor should be avoided,
there is no evidence from this study to support his view.
The book metaphor seems only to be problematic when it is
superficially imposed over a poorly designed navigation
system. On the other hand, there is no evidence either to
suggest that the book metaphor is essential for readers to
be able to make the transition from print book to digital
‘book’. The data supports Landow
(2004) who argues that the spatial (navigation) metaphor
should be fused to the narrative metaphor. A lack of metaphor-fusion was seen at its
most awkward in the case of afternoon, which used
literary references within the fiction, hyper-linked texts
and elements of visual design, alongside a
nearly-but-not-quite web-style navigation system.
Schema-clash ensued, as a result of which readers could not
find their way around the site or around the narrative
without experiencing high levels of disorientation. Similarly, These Waves Of Girls
suffered from an apparent mismatch between its highly
literary, text-led content, which suggested ‘book’
to the readers, and its disjointed navigation system, which
offered too many and too-unclear choices of movement with no
anchor places such as chapter heading, home page, overview
etc. to help readers feel secure. Again, one might
speculate, a more defined structure, one in which at least
chapters were offered in coherent, defined chunks as in a
book, would have helped readers grasp character development
and therefore apprehend a narrative overall. In the case of 253, Miriam, and
Of Day, Of Night, the book was almost completely
absent from the textual and visual language, and there was
little or no reported problem for the readers with
navigation or site orientation. The reason for this,
the data suggest, is that these pieces followed the
conventions for navigation that would apply to the great
majority of web sites and other interactive media. There was
thus no confusion or clash between book conventions and
screen-based navigation behaviour. The data again show how important to
readers are their expectations: the readers of
afternoon saw the hypertext as a literary novel
presented on screen with interactivity, and this affected
their perceptions of how they would move around in its space
and its narrative; by contrast, the Of Day, Of Night
readers saw immediately, apparently prompted by the central
map graphic, that this was not a book-like story, and thus
their criticisms and suggestion were not about its lack of bookness,
but simply about its functionality in terms of finding an
appealing story. Whilst
the intensity of debate around the joys and pains of
hypertext fiction appears to have subsided somewhat, the
continued availability of interactive fiction online suggest
that it is a form not likely to disappear anytime soon. It
is hoped that the findings outlined above will give writers
useful ‘tools’ for the creation of interactive
fictions that will appeal to readers; it is believed
furthermore that theorists and critics may understand the
nature of hypertext fiction better by allowing their
analyses to include knowledge and understandings from the
previously not-connected disciplines used in the study
reported here. Literary theory, reader-response research,
multi-media design practice, and human-computer interface
usability studies are all highly relevant in the
understanding and creation of hypertext fiction, and as Below is a reiteration of the key
‘guidelines’ for writers, derived from my data: ANSUTEGUI,
IZARO, 2005, Amelie,
unpublished AMERIKA,
MARK, 1998, ‘Stitch Bitch; The Hypertext Author as Cyborg-Femme
Narrator’ in Amerika
Online 7 (online http://www.ct.heise.de/tp/english/kolumnen/ame/3193/1.html
accessed 15.10.02) AARSETH,
ESPEN, 1997, Cybertext:
Perspectives On Ergodic Literature, BARRETT,
MARK, 2000, ‘Graphics: The Language of Interactive
Storytelling’, in ACM SIGGRAPH Computer
Graphics, Volume 34, Issue 1 (August 2000) pp7-10 BARTHES,
ROLAND, 1973, The Pleasure of the Text, BEDFORD,
MARTYN and CAMPBELL, ANDY, (2000), The Virtual
Disappearance of Miriam, (online http://www.dreamingmethods.com/miriam) BERNSTEIN,
MARK, 2000, ‘More Than
Legible, or Links That Readers Don’t Want To
Follow’, in Mark Bernstein website (online
http://www.markbernstein.org/LectureNotes.html
accessed1/11/05) BIRKERTS,
SVEN, 1997, ‘Digital Storytelling: Is It Art?’ in
Synapse (online http://hotwired.wired.com/synapse/braintennis/97/31/index0a.htmlaccessed BLANTON,
JOHN, 1996, ‘A Novel Medium’ in Wall Street
Journal Eastern Edition BOLTER,
JAY DAVID, 2001, Writing Space 2nd ed., BROOKS,
PETER, 1984, Reading for the Plot, CAMPBELL,
ANDY, 2003, interviews on Dreaming Methods website
(online http://www.dreamingmethods.com/ accessed CAVALLO,
GUGLIEMO and CHARTIER, ROGER, 1997, A History of Reading
in the West, CALVI,
LICIA, 1999, ‘ "Lector in
Rebus": The Role of the Reader and the Characteristics of Hyperreading’,
in Proceedings of the Tenth ACM Conference on Hypertext
and Hypermedia, CONKLIN,
JEFF, 1987, ‘Hypertext: An Introduction and
Survey’, in IEEE Computer, Volume 2, Number 9,
September 1987, pp17-4 CSIKSZENTMIHALYI,
MIHALI, 1975, Beyond Boredom And Anxiety, San Francisco, Jossey-Bass CSIKSZENTMIHALYI,
MIHALI, 2002, Flow, DOUGLAS,
JANE YELLOWLEES, 1994, ‘How Do I Stop This Thing?’
Closure and Indeterminacy in Interactive Narratives’,
in Hyper/Text/Theory ed. George Landow,
Baltimore, John Hopkins University Press, pp 159-188 (online
http://web.new.ufl.edu/~jdouglas/stop.pdf
accessed 7.11.2004) DOUGLAS,
JANE YELLOWLEES, 2000, The
End of Books, or Books Without End? DOUGLAS,
JANE YELLOWLEES, and HARGADON, ANDREW, 2001, ‘The
Pleasures of Immersion and Engagement: Schemas, Scripts and
the Fifth Business’ in Digital Creativity Volume
12, Number 3, pp153-166 Dreaming Methods, website for digital fiction,
http://www.dreamingmethods.com/ FISH,
FISH,
FISHER,
CAITLIN, These Waves of Girls, site launch February
2001, http://www.yorku.ca/caitlin/waves/navigate.html GEE,
HEYWARD,
MEGAN, 2004, Of Day, Of Night, ISER,
WOLFGANG, 1976, The Act of Reading, (English
translation cited 1978, London; Routledge
and Kegan Paul) JACKSON,
SHELLEY, 1997, ‘Stitch Bitch: The Patchwork Girl’,
in Transformations of the Book, MIT October
24th -26th 1997 (online http://web.mit.edu/m-i-t/articles/jackson.html
accessed JOYCE,
MICHAEL, 1987, afternoon, a story, KENDALL,
ROBERT, 1998, ‘Testing, Testing’ in WordCircuits
website (online http://www.wordcircuits.com/comment/htlit_2.htm
accessed KENDALL,
ROBERT and RETY, JEAN-HUGUES, 2000, ‘Toward an Organic
Hypertext’ in Proceedings of the Eleventh ACM on
Hypertext and Hypermedia, LANDOW
GEORGE P., 1997, Hypertext 2.0, LANDOW,
GEORGE, 2004, ‘Is this Hypertext Any Good? Evaluating
Quality in Hypermedia’, in dichtung-digital 3/2004 (online
http://www.dichtung-digital.org/2004/3/Landow/index.htm
accessed LIVINGSTONE,
SONIA, 2004, ‘The Challenge of Changing Audiences. Or, What
is the Audience Researcher to do in the Age of the
Internet?’ in European Journal of Communication
Volume 19, Number 1, pp75-86 MIALL
DAVID S., 1998, The Hypertextual
Moment, (online http://www.ualberta.ca/~dmiall/Moment.htm
accessed MIALL,
DAVID S., June 1999, ‘Trivializing or Liberating? The
Limitations of Hypertext Theorizing’, in Mosaic
Volume 32 Issue 2, pp157-172
(online http://www.umanitoba.ca/publications/mosaic/backlist/1999/june/miall.htm
accessed MIALL,
DAVID S. and KUIKEN, MIALL,
DAVID S., 2000, ‘On the necessity of Empirical Studies
of Literary Reading’ in Frame.
Utrecht Journal of Literary Theory,
Volume 14, 2000, pp43-59 (online http://www.ualberta.ca/~dmiall/reading/necessity.htm
accessed 12/12004) MIALL,
DAVID S. and DOBSON, TERESA, 2001, ‘Reading Hypertext
and the Experience of Literature’, Journal of
Digital Information (online dated MIALL,
DAVID S., 2003, ‘Reading Hypertext – Theoretical
Ambitions and Empirical Studies’, presented to REDES
group, University of Munich December 16th 2003.
(online http://www.daf.uni-muenchen.de/DAF/PERSONEN/PEERDE/REDES/MIALL_Vortrag_Hypertext.pdf
accessed MILLER,
LAURA, 1998, ‘www.claptrap.com’ in New York
Times Book Review, MOLLOY,
JUDY, 1994, L0ve0ne, (online http://www.eastgate.com/malloy/welcome.html) MURRAY,
JANET H., 1997a, ‘Digital Storytelling: Is It
Art?’ in Synapse (online http://hotwired.wired.com/synapse/braintennis/97/31/index0a.html
accessed MURRAY,
JANET H., 1997b, Hamlet on the Holodeck, NELL,
VICTOR, 1988, Lost in a Book - The Psychology of NIELSEN,
JAKOB, 1989, ‘The Matters That Really Matter For
Hypertext Usability’ in Proceedings of the Second
Annual ACM Conference on Hypertext, New York, USA, ACM
Press, pp 239-248 NIELSEN,
JAKOB, 1990, ‘The Art of Navigating Through
Hypertext’ in Communications of the ACM, March
1990, Vol 33, No. 3 pp 296-310.
PACE,
STEVEN, 2003, ‘A Grounded Theory of the Flow
Experiences of Web Users’, in International Journal
of Human-Computer Studies, Volume 60, Number 3, March
2004, pp327-363. POPE,
JAMES, 2006, ‘A Future For
Hypertext Fiction’, in Convergence, Volume 12,
Number 4, November 2006 RYMAN,
GEOF, 1996, 253 (online http://www.ryman-novel.com/) SELIG,
ROBERT L., 2000, ‘The Endless Reading of Fiction:
Stuart Moultrop’s SMART,
KARL L.; RICE, JUDY COSSELL; WOOD, LARRY E., 2000
‘Meeting the Needs of Users: Toward a Semiotics of the
Web’ in Proceedings of IEEE Professional
Communication Society International Professional
Communication Conference, and Proceedings of the
18th Annual ACM International Conference on
Computer Documentation: Technology and Teamwork, pp
593-605, IEEEE Educational Activities Department,
Piscataway, USA THIMBLEBY,
HAROLD, 2000, ‘Permissive User Interfaces’, in
International Journal of Human-Computer Studies,
Volume 54, Issue 3, March 2001, pp 333-350 TURNER,
MARK, 1996, The Literary
Mind, VAN
DJIK, RUTGER, 2005, The Mobius
Case, unpublished
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