Construct a hypertext which tells a story on a topic of your choice. Focus on design, structure, and readability. Keep a journal of design decisions and be prepared to defend each decision.
Due Thursday, Oct 6th (two weeks).
No scrolling. Each web page should be fully viewable from the Mosaic window. Think of it as a graphic frame. We're not strict about the size of the Mosaic window, as long as it's reasonable. In your accounts the size is set to 700x800.
Rarely use links to outside sources unless they are entirely appropriate to your narrative. You will have to defend them.
Keep a journal of design decisions on-line. Your journal should note decisions like why you chose the images you did, what your themes might be, why you chose the look that you did, why you used bold instead of italics, what you wanted to accomplish, etc. The journal might contain links to pages that influenced you. Explain how they influenced you.
Your hypertext must include somewhere in it a link to this journal. It could be page by page ("how I thought about this page") or at the very end in one big piece, etc. Do whatever is consistent with the overall style of your document.
"Story" can be defined somewhat broadly. Comic books, movies, and newspaper articles are all stories, but so are posters and research presentations. A "Who Dunnit?" story could be quite good as a hypertext.
Order should matter but multiple (though not arbitrary) orderings should still be possible. There are several kinds of relations which require ordering: cause and effect, event and explanation, background and foreground.
Remember Suguru's point: each form of communication has a function (the content) and a style (the attitude). Be aware of the function and style of your hypertext. Are they consistent? As an author, you should provide a context in which your reader should interpret your efforts.
Feel free to do some research for your text!
Should a user ever have to see the same page twice? (e.g. "Return to home")
A lot of web pages look the same. Why?
The constraints of HTML and Mosaic needn't hold you back. Would Picasso had been frustrated if you said, "Do a painting with only blue, white, and black paint?" No.
Is there a theme which ties your page together?
Remember that you will be reviewed by both peers and outsiders. Every presentation should consider its audience in some way.