I remember thinking to myself, "This is going to change everything about how we communicate."
我記得當時心想, 「這將完全改變我們溝通的方式。」
[Small thing.] [Big idea.]
〔小事情〕 〔大點子〕
[Margaret Gould Stewart on the Hyperlink]
〔瑪格麗特.古爾德.斯圖爾特 談超連結〕
A hyperlink is an interface element, and what I mean by that is, when you're using software on your phone or your computer, there's a lot of code behind the interface that's giving all the instructions for the computer on how to manage it, but that interface is the thing that humans interact with: when we press on this, then something happens.
超連結是軟體界面上的元件, 我想說的是, 當你使用手機或電腦的軟體時, 界面背後有很多程式碼, 它給電腦指令來運作。 界面也是人和機器互動的媒介, 當我們點一下,就會啟動某個東西。
When they first came around, they were pretty simple and not particularly glamorous. Designers today have a huge range of options. The hyperlink uses what's called a markup language -- HTML. There's a little string of code. And then you put the address of where you want to send the person. It's actually remarkably easy to learn how to do. And so, the whole range of references to information elsewhere on the internet is the domain of the hyperlink.
它剛問世時看起來很陽春, 沒有什麼魅力; 如今,設計者有了很多選項。 超連結使用一種稱為 HTML 的標記語言。 這是一小串程式碼, 你在這輸入想分享給別人的網址。 學會怎麼做就是這麼簡單。 所有網路上提供站外資訊的參考資料 都屬於超連結的一部分。
Back when I was in school -- this is before people had wide access to the internet -- if I was going to do a research paper, I would have to physically walk to the library, and if they had the book that you needed, great. You sometimes had to send out for it, so the process could take weeks. And it's kind of crazy to think about that now, because, like all great innovations, it's not long after we get access to something that we start to take it for granted.
當我還在學校時── 這是人們還不能 廣泛使用網路的時代── 如果我想查詢一篇論文, 我必須親自去圖書館, 如果有你要的書,很好。 有時你必須先通知, 而這流程可能耗費數週。 現在回想,當時的情況 讓人難以置信。 就像所有偉大的創新, 我們開始使用不久, 就將創新視為理所當然。
Back in 1945, there was this guy, Vannevar Bush. He was working for the US government, and one of the ideas that he put forth was, "Wow, humans are creating so much information, and we can't keep track of all the books that we've read or the connections between important ideas." And he had this idea called the "memex," where you could put together a personal library of all of the books and articles that you have access to. And that idea of connecting sources captured people's imaginations.
1945 年, 這個人,凡內瓦.布什, 他為美國政府工作。 他提出一個想法: 「哇,人類製造這麼多資訊, 而我們卻沒辦法記錄讀過的書 或重要想法間的連結。」 這想法他稱為「記憶擴展」, 你能將有權限閱讀的書和文章 放進個人圖書館中整合。 這種資源互相連結的概念 激發人們的想像。 接著,在 60 年代,
Later, in the 1960s, Ted Nelson launches Project Xanadu, and he said, "Well, what if it wasn't just limited to the things that I have? What if I could connect ideas across a larger body of work?" In 1982, researchers at the University of Maryland developed a system they called HyperTIES. They were the first to use text itself as a link marker. They figured out that this blue link on a gray background was going to work really well in terms of contrast, and people would be able to see it.
泰德.尼爾森推出仙那度計畫, 他說: 「如果不限制在個人的東西呢? 如果我能連結 大量工作中的想法會如何?」 1982 年,馬里蘭大學的學者 開發稱為 HyperTIES 的 超媒體系統。 他們是第一批將文字本身 當成連結標記的。 他們發現,藍色連結配灰色背景 作為對比的效果很好, 人們可以清楚看見。
Apple invented HyperCard in 1987. You had these stacks of cards, and you could create links in between the cards. HyperCard actually created the ability to jump around in a story. These kinds of notions of nonlinear storytelling got a huge boost when the hyperlink came along, because it gave people the opportunity to influence the narrative.
蘋果電腦在 1987 年發明 超媒體系統 HyperCard。 這是一堆卡片, 你可以在卡片間創建連結。 HyperCard 讓人可以 在一則故事裡跳來跳去。 這類非線性敘事的概念 在超連結問世後有爆發性的應用, 因為它給人影響敘事的機會。
These ideas and inventions, among others, inspired Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web. The hyperlink almost feels like a LEGO block, this very basic building block to a very complex web of connections that exists all around the world. Because of the way that hyperlinks were first constructed, they were intended to be not only used by many people, but created by many people. To me, it's one of the most democratic designs ever created.
剛剛提到的想法和發明, 啟發提姆.柏納-李, 發明全球資訊網路的人。 超連結就像樂高積木, 從最基礎的元件到 存在各地的複雜連結網。 由於一開始設立超連結的方式 不只是為了讓許多人使用, 也為了讓許多人創造, 因此我認為,超連結是史上 數一數二民主的設計了。