Thinking Linking

  
     
  In his book, Interface Culture, Steven Johnson called the link the first new form of punctuation to appear in over a hundred years. As yet, we still have little understanding of the complexities of how a link event (of any kind) works.

Linking Exercise

Part One
1) Choose a single link from either one of the pieces of informational multimedia which your group discussed (don't use the piece you yourself analyzed and don't use a piece targetted at children) or a piece of informational multimedia with which you are not familiar. Before you activate the link, answer the following questions:-

a) From the context of the jumping-off point (visual, textual, aural, etc.) where do you expect to go if you activate your chosen link? What hypotheses are you making about what might come next? Support your hypotheses with evidence from the page.
2) Now activate the link, and answer the following questions about your linking experience:-
b) What are you thinking about/doing in the space between activating the link and arriving at your destination. However short the interval between the two, you are thinking about something! 

c) How does what you see when you arrive at your destination force you to assess/reassess the information you have just left, just processed, in the light of new visual information?

d) How does what you read/do at your destination force you to assess/reassess the information you have just processed, in the light of this new information? To what extent was your initial hypothesis on track? 

e) What inferences do you need to draw from the linking event and your destination page, especially about unstated ideas or connections, to continue working/learning/playing?

f) What new hypotheses are you forming as you settle into your new destination (about the narrative you are following, about potential links you might follow, about what you will do next, or where you would want to go next)?

g) Try to write a definition of the process of linking. Concentrate not on the physical actions and events, but on the intellectual and emotional events you encounter.

Part Two
1) & 2) Follow the exact process (including the waiting before you link) for a link on an informational site directed at children.