The paper presents the research framework for the design of a special software environment to support visual knowledge base design and specification. Flexible user centred graphical interface is described. The approach is aimed at three interrelated topics: knowledge specification, visual structuring and hypertext design. The proposed ideas and methods may be applied to those systems where structured analysis of data and knowledge is of special interest, such as intelligent tutoring systems, expert systems, decision support, etc. Keywords. Visual Knowledge Engineering, Hypertext Design, Intelligent Tutoring Systems, Knowledge Acquisition, Expert Systems.