Spatial metaphors are presumed to help alleviate problems of disorientation within the vast expanses of cyberspace by building on human experience of real-world spaces and by providing visual cues which the human perceptual system can readily assimilate. A number of prototype systems have been built and research projects investigating the usefulness of spatial metaphors for information systems are now under way. Let me start with an overview of what I consider to be some of the most important contributions to date. The 3D layout has the advantage over 2D layouts that the nodes of an arbitrary graph can be positioned so that no arcs intersect. Clustering techniques and fisheye views were also implemented.
Users can interactively explore workspaces modeled as three-dimensional rooms.
Particularly interesting is the use of smooth animations to induce object constancy and thus shift human processing away from a cognitive towards a perceptual activity. Links may be made from these text, image, and video documents to other concept nodes. Directories are represented by blocks laid out on a plane, their height representing the cumulative size of the contained files. Clicking on the arc to a subdirectory results in an invisible hand grabbing you and leading you through space to that subdirectory. Clicking on a file block brings a virtual spotlight to bear on that block, double-clicking opens the file for editing, etc.