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Information Design—Week 2, Assignment 1

How does the information design differ in a Web hypertext system as opposed to a software interface system?

According to Jesse James Garrett, information design is necessarily different when using the Web as a software interface as opposed to a simpler hypertext system. The fundamental difference is that hypertext systems are one-way transactions of information—from the server to the client (user)—while a software interface requires two-way communication to utilize its functionality—from the server to the client and vice versa.

This requires a fundamental change in the way interaction designers create their systems; using the Web as strictly a hypertext medium requires navigation design, and using it as a software interface requires interface design. A hypertext system requires only a method of navigating it—links. These links point to various pieces of information within the Web site, which the user requests via the URI and the server serves: one-way communication. Using the Web as a software interface, though, is necessarily more complicated, and requires additional methods of communication—text fields, drop-down lists, radio buttons, checkboxes, etcetera—which enables two-way communication between the server and client.