Hypermedia – Arbitrary Jumps, Landmarks and Bookmarks
2.7 Arbitrary Jumps, Landmarks, and Bookmarks
Arbitrary jumps or gotos can be provided enabling users to go to any node in the system. This can be accomplished by zooming in and out using an animated iris that opens for anchored jumps and closes for return jumps. “Landmarks” or prominent nodes can be provided which can always be accessed from anywhere in the system. The concept of a bookmark is similar to a history list except for the fact that a bookmark is placed by the reader only if a particular node will be of interest at a later date. Hence, a bookmark list is smaller more manageable and more relevant to the user.
Experiments have shown that random jumps from anchors leading to multiple destinations can be very confusing to users [Nielsen, 1990a]. This can be avoided by listing the possible destinations when an anchor is activated allowing the user to choose a predictable path. In Intermedia, this problem has been solved by displaying a single link icon (instead of multiple links) which can be quickly queried to show the specific links, their names, and their destination nodes.