HyperMaps: telling your users where to go

• Authors: Howard Jay Strauss
• Venue: SIGUCCS '90 Proceedings of the 18th annual ACM SIGUCCS conference on User services
• Year: 1990

While you were trying to figure out how to use on-line documentation effectively, along came HyperText, promising your users better ways to assimilate information but complicating your already chaotic world. If you have the time, look over your shoulder and you'll discover an even newer technology, HyperMaps. HyperMaps will allow you to deliver information in ways you probably have not even imagined — and to users who would not normally use computers.HyperMaps are databases that include maps, graphics, text, and a means to navigate among all of these. You'll find that HyperMaps provide information that would be difficult or impossible to deliver in even the most complex database, in a way that the most naive user will find simple to use.Users who currently use your on-line library catalog to find a book might use a HyperMap system to see a map indicating where in the stack of the floor of the building the book is actually located. A HyperMap would also show them how to go from their dorm room to the appropriate branch of the library. But this is only a tiny part of what HyperMaps can do.At Princeton University we have built a HyperMap system and have looked at many systems built by others. Today, PAL (Princeton Automatic Locator), our HyperMap system, is a working pilot project at a crossroad. There are many directions it can move and we are researching the options. The issues we are considering today are the ones you'll probably be considering in the near future.Before you abandon the HyperText project (or on-line documentation project) that you are hard at work on completing, here's an overview of HyperMaps. You'll see what HyperMaps are and how they can compliment existing on-line documentation, hypertext systems, and database systems. You'll see how they allow you to get the attention of non-traditional computer users and renew the interest of existing users. You'll also see how they can serve the needs of special groups of people such as handicapped students, prospective students, and facilities managers.Here's a concise guide to an information delivery system that's likely to be in your future. This guide will provide a road map showing you how to build HyperMap systems that will tell your users where to go.