Of Two Minds Review -- Exploratory Hypertexts

Joyce on exploratory hypertexts:

"By exploratory... I mean ...hypertexts [that] encourage and enable an audience... to control the transformation of a body of information to meet its needs and interests. The transformation should include a capability to create, change, and recover particular encounters with the body of knowledge, maintaining these encounters as versions of the material, i.e., trails, paths, webs, notebooks, etc.

The hypertext audience should also be able to readily understand the elements that make up a particular body of knowledge, plot their progress through these elements and locate them at will. These so called navigational capabilities should be present both within the organizational structure of the hypertext and from the perspective of the particular versions of it that the audience creates" (41).