Lost in hyperspace: cognitive mapping and navigation in a hypertext environment
Deborah Edwards, Lynda Hardman · Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI), the national research institute for mathematics and computer science in the Netherlands · 1999
This chapter describes an experiment which looks at how readers of a hypertext cognitively represent its structure.A database of infonnation was formed into three different hypenext structures and presented to readers, who answered a series of questions about the information contained in the hypertext.The way the readers found the answers to the questions, and how they Iayed out a representation of the hypertext structure was recorded.Evidence gained from this data points co the formation of a spatial cognitive map by readers, which has implications for the structure of a hypertext and the types of navigation tools that should be provided.