Interfaces to hypermedia. Communicating the structure and interaction possibilities to the users

In this paper the hypermedia paradigm is discussed from the viewpoint of user interfaces. The problems of interacting with vast hypermedia structures are presented. First, the attention is drawn to the presentation of the information structures in multi- and hypermedia application interfaces. Secondly, it is discussed how the user's interaction with these structures can be made more intuitive. Furthermore, it is pointed out how interaction through shared multimedia environments needs to be addressed. We claim that interface metaphors and additional information structures will provide a solution to these problems. Finally, our multimedia authoring tool ShareME and its first test environment for multimedia information acquisition is presented to illustrate how the suggested solutions are successfully applied.