Hypertext is text that contains links - so you are not constrained to reading the text from beginning to end, you can jump around inside the text too. It is possible to use paper documents in this way, and components of books such as contents pages, indices, glossaries, footnotes and appendices all provide the sort of non-linear access required for hypertext. However, it was not until the advent of personal computers that hypertext became truly accessible. Hypertext was seen as a way to use computers to present information in the same way that our brains store it, thus making it very intuitive to use. However, it can also be confusing - navigating within a hypertext document can be disorienting.
Users often get a sense of being lost with no clear path back to where they want to be.
Before the WWW was ever conceived, various hypertext theorists had ideas to use computers to realise their visions of hypertext retrieval systems . Ted Nelson worked on the Xanadu project - its aim is to create a database of everything that anyone has every written, all connected to each other via hypertext links. Other projects such as KMS and NoteCards were adaptable hypertext systems used to organise information. HyperCard was the first hypertext system to become popular. This was in part because it was bundled free with every Macintosh and in part because it was graphical and easy to use.