I just discovered something very cool on the New York Times website. They have enabled a reference or dictionary search for any word in any article.The following note appears at the bottom of articles. "To find reference information about the words used in this article, double-click on any word, phrase or name. A new window will open with a dictionary definition or encyclopedia entry."
Unlike many other sites that have visible hyperlinks for keywords that you can click on, this applies to the whole article. The words are shown in a normal format (not underlined or blue). Ordinarily, I like links to be obvious from a useability standpoint, but in this instance, it is not necessary, nor desirable to make every word look like a link.
This feature may have been around for a while, but this is the first time I've seen it, and I felt compelled to comment. I think it is a really effective use of technology to make the text of an article more relevant that it otherwise might be. Kudos NYT!
