• Spatial metaphors
  Hyperdocuments are frequently based on a spatial metaphor, the user being supposed to move about in an urban or natural environment; the notion of 'metaphor' applied to hypermedia structure was widely used in the early 1990s
  
  • Information spaces:
    • Some CMUs (course management systems) are based on the classroom metaphor
  Maps are a frequent structural metaphor
  • Navigation: see a study of navigation strategies in websites meant to evoke landscapes.

 

 

• Information spaces:
  • On CMUs, see the introductory description of a course management system
    see as well a description of a CMS in terms of the perception of space related to Hall's 'proxemics'  (tab 'Pédagogique' - Read the section 'contexte')
    

• On maps, see Martyn Jessop
  He emphasises the idea that in the humanities, the processes that have to be modelled are temporal, and need 'dynamic maps' - see projects undertaken at King's College London.
Navigation: Séverine Letalleur, 'Landscape and the hypermedia' , CATI website

•  Constructivism : Interfaces and navigation metaphors can also be seen in the light of 'constructivist' ideas: as being knowledge constructed by the user in the learning process (in the sense in which 'constructivist' was used in the 1990s).

See a website on constructivist ideas

see an annotated example