Describe the transparency requirement for ZOG.
The designers of ZOG described the transparency requirement in brief as "the entire system is completely open and understandable to the user." To be transparent, the hypertext structure must be "simple in concept and completely under the user's control."
In ZOG, this requirement is met by making the structure of ZOG simple, by making its response time quick, and by listing at the bottom of each frame the actions that are available to the user at that point. These features make ZOG easy to understand, responsive, and easy to use.
What current hypertext system adheres to this principle?
The Knowledge Management System (KMS), which is an evolution of ZOG, adheres to the principle of transparency. The designers deliberately set out to "provide the KMS user with an environment in which there are few concepts to learn." Like its predecessor, KMS shows the user every command that is available to him at any given time. Each frame is of a uniform size, and (as of 1988) the average-sized frame (1K of data) was available to the user in about one-third of a second.
Like ZOG, KMS is easy to understand, responsive, and easy to use.
Why is transparency an important design criterion?
Transparency is important in a hypertext system because the essence of hypertext is the ability to navigate through trails made in a non-linear space. For a hypertext system to be usable, then, the user needs to know what his options for navigation are, and needs to have that navigation be quick, responsive, and easy to understand (or, "natural").
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