Hypermedia, an extension of

hypertext Hypertext is E-text, text displayed on a computer display or other electronic devices with references (hyperlinks) to other text that the reader can immediately access. Hypertext documents are interconnected by hyperlinks, which are typic ...

, is a nonlinear medium of information that includes graphics, audio, video, plain text and

hyperlink In computing, a hyperlink, or simply a link, is a digital reference providing direct access to Data (computing), data by a user (computing), user's point and click, clicking or touchscreen, tapping. A hyperlink points to a whole document or to ...

s. This designation contrasts with the broader term ''

multimedia Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms, such as Text (literary theory), writing, Sound, audio, images, animations, or video, into a single presentation. T ...

'', which may include non-interactive linear presentations as well as hypermedia. The term was first used in a 1965 article written by

Ted Nelson Theodor Holm Nelson (born June 17, 1937) is an American pioneer of information technology, philosopher, and sociologist. He coined the terms ''hypertext'' and ''hypermedia'' in 1963 and published them in 1965. According to his 1997 ''Forbes'' p ...

. Hypermedia is a type of multimedia that features interactive elements, such as hypertext, buttons, or interactive images and videos, allowing users to navigate and engage with content in a non-linear manner. The

World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW or simply the Web) is an information system that enables Content (media), content sharing over the Internet through user-friendly ways meant to appeal to users beyond Information technology, IT specialists and hobbyis ...

is a classic example of hypermedia to access

web content Web content is the text, visual or audio content that is made available online and user encountered as part of the online usage and experience on websites. It may include text, images, sounds and audio, online videos, among other items place ...

, whereas a conventional cinema presentation is an example of standard multimedia, due to its inherent linearity and lack of interactivity via hyperlinks. The first hypermedia work was, arguably, the

Aspen Movie Map The Aspen Movie Map was a hypermedia system developed at MIT that enabled the user to take a virtual tour through the city of Aspen, Colorado. It was developed by a team working with Andrew Lippman in 1978 with funding from ARPA. Features The ...

Bill Atkinson William Dana Atkinson (March 17, 1951 – June 5, 2025) was an American computer engineer, computer programmer, and photographer. Atkinson worked at Apple Computer from 1978 to 1990. Some of Atkinson's noteworthy contributions to the field of ...

HyperCard HyperCard is a application software, software application and software development kit, development kit for Apple Macintosh and Apple IIGS computers. It is among the first successful hypermedia systems predating the World Wide Web. HyperCard com ...

popularized hypermedia writing, while a variety of literary hypertext and non-fiction

works, demonstrated the promise of hyperlinks. Most modern hypermedia is delivered via electronic pages from a variety of systems including media players,

web browser A web browser, often shortened to browser, is an application for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's scr ...

s, and stand-alone applications (i.e., software that does not require network access). Audio hypermedia is emerging with voice command devices and voice browsing.

Development tools

Hypermedia may be developed in a number of ways. Any

programming tool A programming tool or software development tool is a computer program that is used to develop another computer program, usually by helping the developer manage computer files. For example, a programmer may use a tool called a source code editor ...

can be used to write programs that link data from internal variables and nodes for external data files. Multimedia development software such as

Adobe Flash Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash and FutureSplash) is a mostly discontinuedAlthough it is discontinued by Adobe Inc., for the Chinese market it is developed by Zhongcheng and for the international enterprise market it is developed by Ha ...

Adobe Director Adobe Director (formerly Macromedia Director, MacroMind Director, and MacroMind VideoWorks) was a multimedia application authoring platform created by Macromedia and managed by Adobe Systems until its discontinuation. Director was the primary ed ...

Macromedia Authorware Adobe Authorware (previously Macromedia Authorware, originally Authorware) is a discontinued e-learning authoring tool with its own interpreted, flowchart-based, graphical programming language. Authorware was used for creating interactive e-le ...

, and MatchWare Mediator may be used to create stand-alone hypermedia applications, with emphasis on entertainment content. Some

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data or a type of data store based on the use of a database management system (DBMS), the software that interacts with end users, applications, and the database itself to capture and a ...

software, such as

Visual FoxPro Visual FoxPro is a programming language that was developed by Microsoft. It is a data-centric and procedural programming language with object-oriented programming (OOP) features. It was derived from FoxPro (which was itself descended from FoxB ...

and FileMaker Developer, may be used to develop stand-alone hypermedia applications, with emphasis on educational and business content management. Hypermedia applications may be developed on embedded devices for the mobile and the

digital signage Digital signage is a segment of electronic signage that uses Electronic visual display, digital display technologies to present multimedia content in both public and private environments. Content may include video, images, text, or interactive me ...

industries using the

Scalable Vector Graphics Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) is an XML-based vector graphics format for defining two-dimensional graphics, having support for interactivity and animation. The SVG specification is an open standard developed by the World Wide Web Consortium sin ...

(SVG) specification from W3C (

World Wide Web Consortium The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web. Founded in 1994 by Tim Berners-Lee, the consortium is made up of member organizations that maintain full-time staff working together in ...

). Software applications, such as Ikivo Animator and

Inkscape Inkscape is a vector graphics editor. It is used for both artistic and technical illustrations such as cartoons, clip art, logos, typography, diagrams, and flowcharts. It uses vector graphics to allow for sharp printouts and renderings at ...

, simplify the development of hypermedia content based on SVG. Embedded devices, such as the

iPhone The iPhone is a line of smartphones developed and marketed by Apple that run iOS, the company's own mobile operating system. The first-generation iPhone was announced by then–Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007, at ...

, natively support SVG specifications and may be used to create mobile and distributed hypermedia applications. Hyperlinks may also be added to

data file A data file is a computer file which stores data to be used by a computer application or system, including input and output data. A data file usually does not contain instructions or code to be executed (that is, a computer program). Most of th ...

s using most

business software Business software (or a business application) is any software or set of computer programs used by business users to perform various business functions. These business applications are used to increase productivity, measure productivity, and per ...

via the limited scripting and

ing features built in. Documentation software, such as the

Microsoft Office Suite Microsoft Office, MS Office, or simply Office, is an office suite and family of client software, server software, and services developed by Microsoft. The first version of the Office suite, announced by Bill Gates on August 1, 1988, at COMDE ...

and

LibreOffice LibreOffice () is a free and open-source office productivity software suite developed by The Document Foundation (TDF). It was created in 2010 as a fork of OpenOffice.org, itself a successor to StarOffice. The suite includes applications ...

, allow for hypertext links to other content within the same file, other external files, and

URL A uniform resource locator (URL), colloquially known as an address on the Web, is a reference to a resource that specifies its location on a computer network and a mechanism for retrieving it. A URL is a specific type of Uniform Resource Identi ...

links to files on external

file server In computing, a file server (or fileserver) is a computer attached to a network that provides a location for shared disk access, i.e. storage of computer files (such as text, image, sound, video) that can be accessed by workstations within a co ...

s. For more emphasis on graphics and

page layout In graphic design, page layout is the arrangement of visual elements on a page. It generally involves organizational principles of composition to achieve specific communication objectives. The high-level page layout involves deciding on the ...

, hyperlinks may be added using most modern

desktop publishing Desktop publishing (DTP) is the creation of documents using dedicated software on a personal ("desktop") computer. It was first used almost exclusively for print publications, but now it also assists in the creation of various forms of online co ...

tools. This includes

presentation program In computing, a presentation program (also called presentation software) is a software package used to display information in the form of a slide show. It has three major functions: * an editor that allows text to be inserted and formatted * ...

s, such as

Microsoft PowerPoint Microsoft PowerPoint is a presentation program, developed by Microsoft. It was originally created by Robert Gaskins, Tom Rudkin, and Dennis Austin at a software company named Forethought, Inc. It was released on April 20, 1987, initially ...

and LibreOffice Impress, add-ons to print layout programs such as Quark Immedia, and tools to include hyperlinks in

PDF Portable document format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe Inc., Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, computer hardware, ...

documents such as

Adobe InDesign Adobe InDesign is a desktop publishing and page layout designing software application software, application produced by Adobe Inc., Adobe and first released in 1999. It can be used to create works such as posters, flyers, brochures, magazines, ...

for creating and

Adobe Acrobat Adobe Acrobat is a family of application software and web services developed by Adobe Inc. to view, create, manipulate, print and manage Portable Document Format (PDF) files. The family comprises Acrobat Reader (formerly Reader), Acrobat (former ...

for editing. Hyper Publish is a tool specifically designed and optimized for hypermedia and hypertext management. Any

HTML editor An HTML editor is a program used for editing HTML, the markup of a web page. Although the HTML markup in a web page can be controlled with any text editor, specialized HTML editors can offer convenience, added functionality, and organisation. Fo ...

may be used to build

HTML Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It defines the content and structure of web content. It is often assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets ( ...

files, accessible by any web browser. CD/DVD authoring tools, such as

DVD Studio Pro DVD Studio Pro is a discontinued high-end software tool published by Apple Inc. to allow users to create DVD masters to be sent out for replication at production houses. Its tight integration with other Apple applications allowed users to take Fi ...

, may be used to hyperlink the content of

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

s for

DVD player A DVD player is a machine that plays DVDs produced under both the DVD-Video and DVD-Audio technical standards, two different and incompatible standards. Some DVD players will also play audio CDs. DVD players are connected to a television to ...

s or web links when the disc is played on a

personal computer A personal computer, commonly referred to as PC or computer, is a computer designed for individual use. It is typically used for tasks such as Word processor, word processing, web browser, internet browsing, email, multimedia playback, and PC ...

connected to the internet.

Learning

There have been a number of theories concerning hypermedia and learning. One important claim in the literature on hypermedia and learning is that it offers more control over the instructional environment for the reader or student. Another claim is that it levels the playing field among students of varying abilities and enhances collaborative learning. A claim from psychology includes the notion that hypermedia more closely models the structure of the brain, in comparison with printed text.Terry K. Borsook, Nancy Higginbotham-Wheat
''A Psychology of Hypermedia: A Conceptual Framework for R&D.''
1992. Retrieved August 3, 2010.

Application programming interfaces

Hypermedia is used as a medium and constraint in certain

application programming interface An application programming interface (API) is a connection between computers or between computer programs. It is a type of software Interface (computing), interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that des ...

HATEOAS Hypermedia as the engine of application state (HATEOAS) is a constraint of the REST software architectural style that distinguishes it from other network architectural styles. With HATEOAS, a client interacts with a network application whose appl ...

, Hypermedia as the Engine of Application State, is a constraint of the REST application architecture where a client interacts with the server entirely through hypermedia provided dynamically by application servers. This means that in theory no

API An application programming interface (API) is a connection between computers or between computer programs. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how to build ...

documentation is needed, because the client needs no prior knowledge about how to interact with any particular application or server beyond a generic understanding of hypermedia. In other

service-oriented architecture In software engineering, service-oriented architecture (SOA) is an architectural style that focuses on discrete services instead of a monolithic design. SOA is a good choice for system integration. By consequence, it is also applied in the field ...

s (SOA), clients and servers interact through a fixed interface shared through documentation or an interface description language (IDL).

References

External links

* {{Authority control Hypertext

Development tools

Learning

Application programming interfaces

See also

References

Further reading

External links