Unlike other attempts to put guidelines online, what we are proposing here is a more specific tool designed to support the planning and idea generation phase of interface design. Hypertext Functionality Each of the fifteen design tasks can be treated as process nodes. Each of the process nodes receives a set of inputs and transformations are carried out on them to produce a set of outputs. The intermediate outputs form parts of the overall design artifact. The combination of design tasks, inputs, and outputs together form a hypertext network.
Arrows represent data flows and relationships between tasks.
Hypertext functionality enables non-linear interaction and backtracking through the various tasks. The framework proposes that all hypertext networks can generally be classified to contain six different types of nodes and twelve different types of links as shown in Figure 2. The individual tasks themselves can be classified as nodes of specific types while the numerous pathways between them can be treated as links of specific types. For example, the node type makes it explicit to the designer whether a task is atomic or composite. The link type specifies the nature of relationship between any two tasks.