Untitled - witz cultural

150HYPERTEXT 3.0 features, they implicitly made the assumption that the system, rather thanthe author, does most of the work. In doing so, they tended to ignore thestylistic and other author-created devices that made the search quick and easyfor a majority of users.We should also note that a preference for browsing up to and includingthe sense of "disorientation" can create disconcerting results for hypertextdesigners, despite the fact that hypertert theorists often praise this approachto wandering through a database. For example, one user criticized one of thesystems precisely because it proved "more difficult to become disoriented inthe good way that Intermedia and Storyspace tend to facilitate. I found thatlinks continually brought me back to crossroads or overviews, rather than toother documents. For this reason I felt less like an active reader. Orientationdevices such as these explained and categorized links rather than allowingme to make my own connections and categories" (AM). To those who finddisorientation a negative quality, these comments might seem puzzling,because apparently negative qualities here come in for praise. In fact, this studentspecifically mentions "the good way" Intermedia and Storyspace createa sense of disorientation, which she takes to be a condition that empowershypertext users because it places them in an active role-one particularly appropriateto this new information medium.The reactions ofthese student-evaluator suggest six points about readerdisorientation. First, although it represents a potentially significant problemin some systems, a priori concerns about it may well arise from lack of experiencewith hypertext systems, specifically from attempting to apply readingand information-retrieval protocols appropriate to booktechnologyto thisnewmedium.Second, what one reader experiences as disorientation, another may findpleasurable.Third, disorientation has quite different connotations in the writings ofthose based in technological as opposed to literary disciplines. The technologicallybased conception ofdisorientation relates to a conception ofeducationessentially limited to factual information. Literary or humanistic assumptionsabout disorientation seem related to a conception of education inwhich students learn to deal with complex matters of interpretation.Fourth, disorientation-let me emphasize this point yet again-arisesboth in the normal act of reading difficult material and in pooily designedsystems. Knowledge of content, as some of our evaluators demonstrate, hasto be considered as part of any solution to issues of system-generated orsystem-permitted disorientation.