Contents

Abstract
I: Introduction
II: Hypertext & computers
III: Hypertext & litcrit
IV: The Art of Memory
Bibliographic references

Abstract

Intelligibility has emerged as a persistent difficulty in interactive multimedia and hypermedia. While much discussion has focused on screen design and readability, intelligibility is a deeper problem that the hypertext literature has disregarded. Before literacy was widespread, The Art of Memory was widely used as a method for retaining information. This mnemonic method, both visual and symbolic, was used to map new information onto familiar and symbolically significant structures which provided frames for the organization and interrelations within informational clusters.

More than computer metaphor, The Art of Memory is presented to offer insight into intelligibility. It is offered as a model for the non-text based organization of multimedia presentation: one that can provide semantic contexts within which communications are intelligible.

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