This paper presents an academic World Wide Web authoring tool called AutoHTML. This tool, a work in progress, is designed to allow the novice user the ability to construct high level Web pages with a consistent look and feel. The system works with a standard Web browser without the addition of component plug-ins. Additional HTML meta-tags are…

A review of college and university library home pages concluded that many higher education home pages are badly designed, difficult to navigate, and a poor reflection on the institution. The most common shortcoming was the tendency to create too many links or overly large graphics. An appendix lists points to consider when constructing a home…

Dynamic discussions have begun to emerge concerning style of presentation on world wide web sites. Some hypertext markup language (HTML) designers seek an intimate and chatty ambience, while others want to project a more professional image. Evaluators see many sites as overdecorated and indecipherable. This paper offers suggestions on selecting…

With no standards governing their creation, a variety of formats are being used for World Wide Web homepages. Some are well organized, present their information clearly, and work with multiple browsers. Others, however, are slow to load, function poorly with some Web browsing software, and are so badly structured that they are very difficult to…

Describes an experiment in which presentation size and text length is varied in a HyperCard application. Students performed a fact-retrieval task from a reference handbook. No interaction is found between these two independent variables. Performance is significantly better for the longer texts, but no significant difference is found for the two…

As information delivery systems on the Internet increasingly evolve into World Wide Web browsers, understanding key graphical elements of the browser interface is critical to the design of effective information display and access tools. Image maps are one such element, and this document describes a pilot study that collected, reviewed, and…

This paper examines the main issues in hypermedia navigation, proposes research questions, and suggests a methodology for resolving those questions. The paper begins with an overview of navigation and a discussion of design issues in hypermedia databases, including being lost in hyperspace, the use of hypermaps, proper balance between links and…

Provides an overview of the potential of hypermedia as an instructional medium and discusses research that has investigated learning outcomes. Discusses instructional design considerations to guide developers and designers of hypermedia systems, including learner characteristics and elements of content presentation such as text structure,…

Results of two studies of user design preferences for link markers--entities that signify pathways to additional information in hypermedia information systems--indicate that, in general, link markers that employ color and bound objects are the most effective in communicating the existence and extent of links and are most preferred by users.…

There are several approaches a World Wide Web site designer considers in developing a menu structure. One consideration is the content of the menus (what choices are available to the user). Another consideration is the physical layout of the menu structure. The physical layout of a menu may be described as being one of at least three different…

The hypertext markup language (HTML) used to develop pages for the world wide web also has potential for use in creating some types of multimedia instruction destined for CD-ROMs. After providing a brief overview of HTML, this document presents pros and cons relevant to CD-ROM production. HTML can offer compatibility to both Windows and Macintosh…

This paper presents guidelines for World Wide Web-based instructional design, based on the 3Ls (i.e., linking, layout, and learner support). The first section, focusing on macro level design, discusses nodes and links, including how nodes work, determining nodes, node size, presentation format, characteristics of links, and kinds of links. The…

Users of content-based software programs, including hypertexts and instructional multimedia, rely on the navigation functions provided by the designers of those program. Typical navigation schemes use abstract symbols (arrows) to label basic navigational functions like moving forward or backward through screen displays. In a previous study, the…

This paper presents interface guidelines from research at the University of Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania) School of Information Sciences in developing a collaborative, problem-based learning environment for the World Wide Web. The lessons learned are based on student use and evaluation of three interface prototypes over the course of 3 years and…

This set of proceedings assembles papers presented at the 1995 Council for Higher Education Computing Services (CHECS) conference, held at the New Mexico Military Institute in Roswell, New Mexico. CHECS members are higher education computing services organizations within the state of New Mexico. The main focus of the conference was the Internet…