Chapter+2+Metaphor+and+Navigation

Names: Danielle Cajigas, Chelsea Melanson
 * How do architects, urban planners and building managers help us navigate?
 * Information about the destination zones appears once the visitors have entered the buildings. On signs and maps only a small number of written items can be read at a glance. Subway route maps have been effective becasue they are simple. The use of mulitple means to communicate the same information is the best guarantee that the message gets across.


 * What evidence is there that skill in navigating within a video game may be similar to the skill a cab-driver has for navigating his/her city?
 * In recent years researchers have conducted experiments similar to the MRI and PET scans of taxi drivers recalling routes. The experiments are based on virtual environments. When the subjects are exploring a virtual maze or the artificial terrian of a video game, the same neurons light up.


 * How do the following metaphors differ in meaning, depending on whether you are navigating physically or on the internet?
 * up-down: on the net this means top of page, bottom of page
 * in-out: when you click on a link you go into it; "back out" means going back to where you were before.
 * front-back: the forward and back arrows at the top left of most browsers. When navigating the physical world you walk or drive forward ; "back" is back the way you came.
 * deep-shallow: Following links takes you down, down, like diving into a pool.
 * These are orienting metaphors that are mostly spatial in nature. They arise from the fact that we have bodies that function as they do in our physical environment.


 * In what ways do spatial metaphors (e.g., representing the web as a map) fail when representing the web?
 * Researchers have questioned the usefulness of these metaphors. Attempts to map the Web using information visualization techniques mostly fail. There is no real distance, there are always shortcuts. Spatial metaphors have limits. There are complementary metaphors such as shape and genre that provide new inspiration for design, and it's good to move beyond metaphors in search of innovation.