Since 1994, volume of Web traffic on the Internet has outpaced traffic of all other information access methods on the Internet. Hypertext is a way to link words or phrases in documents to other documents. Hypertext makes it easy to explore material related to a certain topic. The method of accessing information on the Web is quite different from reading a book. While the book imposes a fairly linear structure to using it, documents on the Web can be read in a much more spontaneous and interactive fashion.
Web documents offer many more capabilities than paper documents.
Web documents can contain text, images, video clips, and audio clips. As an example, this makes it possible to view written material about a surgical procedure being done, and listen to an interview with the surgeon. Web forms enable the user to input information, for instance to answer a questionnaire or order merchandise electronically. In the future, it will be possible to travel through three-dimensional scenes and run programs on the Web. It is this standard that allows the user to view Web documents from any computer running Web software.