This paper examines the uses of hypermedia technologies by popular science magazines, in the light of the potential implied by these technologies. In a series of two studies, we investigated the argumentation and readability of texts and hypertexts from six popular science magazines and we conducted an experimental study with one of the texts from the corpus. Results show that science magazines do not fully apply recommendations from research in ergonomics of hypermedia, and hypertext conducted to lower comprehension scores and higher perception of cognitive load. Conclusions suggest that popular science magazine's readability is currently very poor, but it could be improved by the application of some criteria from research in ergonomics. Our results may guide online authors in the development of online versions of traditional science magazines.
Journals of scientific dissemination; Hypermedia technology; Hypertext
