Evaluating Hypertexts

A site whose author is “teaching a small course in media aesthetics next term, “Jerz’s Literacy Weblog has posted a link to a very interesting article by George Landow, who is one of the key thinkers in the field of hypertext theory.

What is quality in hypertext? How, in other words, do we judge a hypertext collection of documents (or web) to be successful or unsuccessful, to be good or bad as hypertext? How can we judge if a particular hypertext achieves elegance or just mediocrity? Those questions lead to another: what in particular is good about hypertext? What qualities does hypertext have in addition to those possessed by non-hypertextual forms of writing, which at their best can boast clarity, energy, rhythm, force, complexity, and nuance? What qualities, in other words, derive from a form of writing that is defined to a large extent by electronic linking. What good things, what desirable qualities, come with linking, since the link is the defining characteristic of hypertext?

The article is entitled, simply, Is this hypertext any good?
Evaluating quality in hypermedia