Information Reuse in Hypermedia Applications

Reuse - broadly defined as the use of existing information objects or software artifacts in different contexts and for different purposes - is a technology for improving productivity, reducing the production effort and cost, and increasing the quality of end applications (promoting consistency and therefore improving usability). Reuse is a crucial issue in hypermedia applications. Reuse may be applied to items of different sizes and different complexity (from an elementary value to a large structured portion of the application). It may involve several aspects of the hypermedia application (content, organisation, presentation and connections). It can be implemented with different techniques, by creating a new copy of an item, or by sharing the same item in two (or more) different contexts. In this paper we analyse hypermedia reuse under these different viewpoints, discuss a classification of different types of reuse, and present a few examples from commercial and prototype hypermedia titles. From the analysis of these case studies we derive technical hints, recommendations and pitfalls-to-avoid, that would help hypermedia authors handle reuse in the most effective way possible. We also suggest reuse techniques that can be incorporated in future authoring systems.