Hypertext offers the opportunity, which books do not, to decentralize the authority of individual texts. Comparison consists of providing the means for users to compare variants in texts in both new and productive ways. Providing links from one text to the next is another. Lavagnino imagines the development of tools that will allow the user to make open ended queries and generate comparative reports based on variables the user specifies. For now, however, merely figuring out how to link and display texts seems enough of a challenge.
Construction involves how a hypertext is put together.
Is it in a form that a reader can actually make use of. Construction is closely related to integration , which, for Lavagnino, is the biggest challenge creators of scholarly hypertexts face. We often think of the value of the work we do in electronic environments as self-evident, forgetting that there are many for whom our goals and methods are obscure. The primary technical challenge in creating a complex hypertext is to provide maximum readability while providing maximum informative value. Readability of electronic text, for example, is achieved through how well it approximates the conventions of printed text.