Monitoring user actions in the hypertext system 'HyperMan'

摘要

The hypertext system "HyperMan" provides for an automatic conversion of linear machine--readable documents into hypertexts by applying text partitioning and link generation methods. After completion of the generation process, the graphical user interface of the system enables users to browse through the converted documents very easily. To determine whether user actions allow conclusions to be drawn about a generated hypertext, a special component that records user actions has been integrated into the system. In this way sequences of actions can be identified that provide hints of relationships between two document passages or between two terms that occur in the text. Then, the relationships can be stored as links or thesaurus entries, respectively, in the system's data base and can be made available to subsequent users. In addition to acquiring relationships, the user observation component also provides for hints about the acceptance of system components. These hints can serve as a basis for further development of the system.