User Interfaces for Hypermedia: How to Find Good Metaphors?

Users of hypermedia are known to suffer from confusion and loss of overview when navigating within the hyperspace. This is especially serious problem in public information systems where instant acceptance by non-computer-experts must be ensured. Concrete real-world user interface metaphors can help slve these problems by imposing familiar structures and interaction possibilities and visualizing them to the user. This paper gives guidance to the hypermedia user interface designer in the task of selecting an appropriate metaphor.