Hypertext habitats: experiences of writers in NoteCards

This paper reports on an investigation into the use of the NoteCards hypertext system for writing. We describe a wide variety of personal styles adopted by 20 researchers at Xerox as they “inhabit” NoteCards. This variety is displayed in each of their writing activities: notetaking, organizing and reorganizing their work, maintaining references and bibliographies, and preparing documents. In addition, we discuss the distinctive personal decisions made as to which activities are appropriate for NoteCards in the first place. Finally, we conclude with a list of recommendations for system designers arising from this work.