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In his book, Interface Culture, Steven Johnson called the link
the first new form of punctuation to appear in over a hundred years.
As yet, we still have little understanding of the complexities of how
a link event (of any kind) works.
Linking Exercise
1) Choose a single link from one of the pieces
of informational multimedia which your group discussed (don't use the
piece you yourself analyzed). Before you activate the link, answer the
following questions:-
a) From the context of the jumping-off point (visual, textual, aural,
etc.) where do you expect to go if you activate your chosen link.
What hypotheses are you making about what might come next?
Support your hypotheses with evidence from the page.
2) Now activate the link, and answer the following questions about
your linking expereince:-
b) What are you thinking about/doing in the space between activating
the link and arriving at your destination. However short the interval
between the two, you are thinking about something!
c) How does what you see when you arrive at your destination
force you to assess/reassess the information you have just left,
just processed, in the light of new visual information?
d) How does what you read/do at your destination force you
to assess/reassess the information you have just processed, in the
light of this new information? To what extent was your initial hypothesis
on track?
e) What inferences do you need to draw from the linking event and
your destination page, especially about unstated ideas or connections,
to continue working/learning/playing?
f) What new hypotheses are you forming as you settle into your new
destination (about the narrative you are following, about potential
links you might follow, about what you will do next, or where you
would want to go next)?
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