Towards a hypertext navigation language

Hypertext is a paradigm for user-driven access to information, and the task of the user is to navigate hypertext. This poster suggests to treat navigation as an independent dimension by explicitly describing the navigation space in a dedicated navigation language.The language has three major applications: (1) Describing paths through hypertext. Those paths can be used as recommendations or prescriptions that users may or must follow. (2) Building specialized information access paths to cope with specific information needs. (3) Enabling the automation of recurring navigation patterns.All three cases are related by the notion of a path. We introduce an abstraction that captures the idea of a "path through hypertext", so-called hypertracks, which are concise, quick to author, and easy to communicate (e.g. via e-mail or Web).This poster motivates the navigation language and introduces the concepts behind it (hypertracks, stateful navigation situations, navigation context, navigation actions, navigation history, predicates for conditional navigation, and an event-based processing model). The concrete syntax of the language and its integration into a browser are under development.