Examining usability for a training-oriented hypertext: Can hyper-activity be good?

We describe the design and evaluation of a hypertext-based tutorial for hypertext authors. This85-article tutorial represents an innovative application of hypertext to procedural learning.
The work has been influenced by Carroll’s minimalist model, and by the syntactic/semantic
semantic model of user behavior. The usability study involved eight subjects who studied the
Hyperties Author Tutorial (HAT) for approximately one hour and then performed a set of
authoring tasks in an average of 21 minutes. All users successfully completed the tasks. As a
result of the study, we provide a characterization of appropriate uses of hypertext for training,
and describe the meaning of a hyper-active environment.