A Hypertext That Works: Making Sense of Marcel Duchamp, by Andrew Stafford. Duchamp's biography, and a discussion of some of his central works. It is an excellent illustration of how a timeline often is an excellent navigation tool. The whole text is actually linear, and may be read in one sequence, but the timeline breaks up the whole thing.
Be sure to scroll the whole timeline. It took a while before I realised it could be done.
What I don't get is why Stafford made it all in Flash. This would not be any worse in HTML, and if he then put the timeline on top, he wouldn't have to chop op the text in such small pages. Then I could have enlarged the type, too.
Another nice thing would be a thumbnail catalogue of all the artworks as an alternative to the timeline.
Still, I really like it. Check out the comparison between Nude Descending a Staricase and an animated version of Muybridge's Female Descending Stairs and Turning Around. (I can't link to it, since it is in Flash. Another reason why HTML would've been better.)
It's hypertext, and it works.
(From Elli Mylonas)
<< Previously in Surftrail:
Books about blogs
Next: >>
Mussels