Hypertext for the aged: effects of text topologies

Although hypertext enables more control over document exploration for a larger amount of information, users traversing hypertext often experience disorientation arising from the complexity of text topologies. The navigational problem may impose severe difficulty on older users as aging has been shown detrimental to human spatial orientation. The present study intends to examine the effect of different text topologies on older users' performance in hypertext perusal. Two commonly used text topologies, hierarchical and referential, were constructed with HTML. Twelve subjects whose ages ranged from 57 to 67 participated in an experiment where each of the two topological treatments received six subjects at random. The results showed that for older adults, hypertext with a hierarchical topology was superior to its referential counterpart in terms of browsing and navigation efficiency. The implications for design of hypertext systems/interface fit for the aged are discussed. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.