What Makes Hypertext Ineffective?
One of the main reasons that hypertext can be ineffective for some people is that it can become very time consuming and confusing. Anyone that has "surfed" the web in search of information on a topic, whether it is the history of Scandinavia or the latest weight loss fad, has experienced problems with hypertext. One of the most common problems is poor direction of information. This is what leads to hypertext being time consuming and confusing. An example of this dilemma is a web page that includes a link to another page about "King Edward." After clicking on the "King Edward" link, the surfer is brought to the medieval studies website of a local university. There may be a small paragraph about "King Edward" at the bottom of the page, or there may be another link. This can happen for an exponential number of pages until the surfer either comes to a page that actually lists anything important about the topic, or they give up and try to find a different website. It is easy to see how this can become time consuming when compared to going to the library and getting books specifically on "King Edward," and confusing when you can't tell when or if you will come to your desired destination.
Hypertext can be a most inefficient and frustrating thing. Unique to each individual designer is their personal preference for a particular layout that may or may not be appealing to their audience. A hypertext layout that is not visually appealing can be confusing. When a piece of hypertext is not organized so that it is easy to navigate, the designer loses their audience. When a piece of hypertext does not appeal to the general public, it is not adored or coveted. To be unadored and uncoveted is the equivalent of being unloved and hated. Hypertext can provoke feelings of dissatisfaction in a way that no other medium can. These feelings stem from a poor design layout and lack of concise organization. Circular levels of confusion lead the hypertext viewer on a wild goose chase for the treasure that they seek. It is the equivalent of peeling back the many layers of an onion, crying the whole time, only to find that there are foul maggots infesting the formerly delicious inner core. This is what horrific hypertext designers inflict on the World Wide Web and their evil creations only promote the destruction of their pieces.
Perhaps the greatest frustration of hypertext is the time delay caused by hardware problems. While not a function of hypertext itself, it serves to hamper the effectiveness of the medium. Without being able to read, see, or interpret the data, it swiftly becomes impossible to compare it in any way to its cousin, literature. Without being able to view the medium, the effectiveness of the rhetoric becomes a moot point, its inefficiency hitting an asymptote at infinity. As stated before, the problem here lies directly and solely in the hardware, and yet, without the framework for display, there exists no chance for the form to be evaluated. The 'lag-time' on a hard-copy sheet of paper, or a sheaf of them bound in a book, is limited to the amount of time it takes to split the books cover, to reveal the manuscript held within the protective leather. If this were to be somehow stuck together, there would be a similar detrimental effect to that of the lagging HTTP. In any case, as long as the medium relies on the hardware to deliver its message, it remains an important (and unreliable) component in the effectiveness of the print.