Charney's Dilemma

Hypertext can't do the work of print very well. You don't have to be a cognitive scientist to see this. Hypertext gives readers more choices at the same time that it takes away the linear structure of the codex. A number of researchers have suggested that hypertext complicates the reading process in information-retrieval tasks associated with education and training (Carlson 1990; Charney 1992; Landow 1992). Hypertexts can be disorienting and confusing; this is now documented fact.

So, as theorists like Davida Charney see it, hypertext developers face a dilemma. Our documents must function in the real world, where people need systems that can deliver information quickly and efficiently. We can create rhetorical conventions to restrict the complexity of hypertext documents, but as we do so we must give up many of the features that make hypertext so interesting, such as implicit and associational links (Charney 1992). The choice as Charney outlines it is between a "Romantic" view of hypertext as a totally unconstrained discourse and an instrumental approach in which hypertext looks very much like print.

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