When someone turns on a computer, puts a CD (compact disc) in its CD drive, and listens to her favorite music while she works on a paper, she is experiencing multimedia. Other examples of multimedia usage include looking at pictures taken from a digital camera. In contrast, surfing the World Wide Web, following links from one site to another, looking for all types of information, is called experiencing hypermedia. The major difference between multimedia and hypermedia is that the user is more actively involved in the hypermedia experience, whereas the multimedia experience is more passive.

Hypermedia is an enhancement of hypertext, the non-sequential access of text documents, using a multimedia environment and providing users the flexibility to select which document they want to view next based on their current interests. The path followed to get from document to document changes from user to user...