Book Review Multimedia and Hypertext: the Internet and Beyond by Jakob Nielsen Book Review by Bert Bos 'Multimedia and Hypertext, the Internet and Beyond' is a book about hypertext usability: the usability of the software as well as the hypertext itself. T h e Internet (read: the World Wide Web) is only one of the examples. The 'beyond' in the title refers to a chapter with predictions about the growth of hypertext usage. T h e book starts with an attempt to define hypertext. Obviously it is not possible to give a complete definition, but the author succeeds in listing a number of useful characteristics. At the end of that section he states that the best test is whether it 'looks and feels' like hypertext. It may seem a weak subterfuge, but it makes it perfectly clear that 'hypertext-ness' is not in the system architecture, but in the user interface. An important point, since m a n y people on the World Wide Web think that everything that has a U R L is a hyperlink. T h e second chapter introduces hypertext from the viewpoint of the hypertext author, using a small text by the author himself
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