What is Hypertext Authoring?

Abstract

Despite a proliferation of hypertext systems used for fiction, and accompanying authoring tools for those systems, relatively few studies have looked at what are the distinct activities involved in hypertext authoring. This has meant that research into authoring tools has not sufficiently targeted specific activities, leading to complexity for users, and confusion over what research findings actually mean. In this paper we present a systematic literature review and analysis of all the papers published in ACM Hypertext (since 1987) and the International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling (ICIDS since 2008, and preceding events ICVS and TIDSE 2001-2007) that describe a distinct authoring activity. We discover seventeen papers that between them cover six common activities: Training/Support, Planning, Visualising/Structuring. Writing, Editing, and Compiling/Testing, as well as a seventh category for non-common Advanced activities for specialist domains. Planning and Editing tend to treat structure and content as a duality, while Structuring and Writing treat them as separate aspects of the digital narrative. All six activities have foundations in the Hypertext conference in its first decade, and have seen somewhat of a resurgence of interest in ICIDS in the last decade - although overall numbers are surprisingly low, especially given the size of the proceedings reviewed, indicating how little is known about the human experience of hypertext authoring. Our findings will help structure the work of those studying hypertext authoring and help focus the efforts of those developing new authoring applications.