Should Users Be Retained at a Site?
One of the ideals of hypertext is the decentered text. As George Landow describes it
anyone who uses hypertext makes his or her own interests the de facto organizing principle (or center) for the investigation at the moment. One experiences hypertext as an infinitely decenterable and recenterable system, in part because hypertext transforms any document that has more than one link into a transient center, a directory document that one can employ to orient oneself and to decide where to go next. (37)
Yet this decentering has its critics; commercial designers worry that providing multiple opportunities for users to leave the site will result in fewer visitors and, ultimately, fewer customers, as Roger Black argued in 1997:
One secret to keeping the navigation simple for the user is to limit the use of hypertext. The overuse of hot links springing people off your site in various directions will result in at least mild befuddlement. It's used for the sake of novelty way too often. (81)
One way to balance these contrasting demands for multiple links and limited links is to insert a target="_blank" attribute into the anchor tag for the link. Links that include this attribute open in a new window above the original site; when the window is closed, users return automatically to the referring site.
Yet even the use of the target="_blank" attribute can be the basis for a discussion of control. Is it acceptable for writers to retain users on their sites, or should users be allowed to make their own decisions about when and how to leave? Does using the target="_blank" attribute constitute an attempt to limit the decentering of hypertext, and is such an attempt a valid narrowing of hypertext possibilities? Jakob Nielsen, in many ways an apostle of control, argues for freedom of movement: "Users are in control of their destiny. Get over it. You don't own them" (66). Students can be asked to consider whether their choices constitute an attempt to "own" the unownable.
Citation Format:
Batschelet, Margaret. "Learning To Love the Code: HTML As a Tool in the Writing Classroom." The Writing Instructor. 2004. http://www.writinginstructor.org/files/batschelet/
(Date Accessed).
Review Process: Margaret Batschelet's
hypertext was accepted for publication following blind, peer review.