Providing Spatial Navigation for the World Wide Web

The World Wide Web (WWW) is a rapidly growing distributed hypertext on the Internet. This paper presents a way to enable users to navigate the WWW spatially by providing a spatial user interface metaphor in a textual virtual environment. This may help users to orient themselves in the masses of information available. The term "spatial navigation" stresses the fact that the structure of the information space is made explicit in this type of navigation whereas hypertext itself, and especially the WWW tend to hide this structure. We review common navigational strategies on the WWW and point out how these strategies indirectly make use of the underlying structure of the information space. Whereas hypertexts hide their structure, virtual environments explicitly show it. We outline navigational differences between hypertexts and (textual) virtual environments and describe a way to combine the advantages of both. In our system, presently implemented at the Georgia Institute of Tech...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1995
• Where: COSIT
• Authors: Andreas Dieberger
• Keywords: COSIT 1995, GIS, Textual Virtual Environment, Virtual Environment, WWW Tend