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Message:

Your Spaces look very much like poor documents

Posted by Stacy Curl on August 04, 2000 at 8:56 AM

I enjoyed reading your article "First steps in Cyberspace" but
I found it a little odd that your place services are little
more than 'folders' containing icons representing links to
further services / web pages. My first reaction is 'Huh? - you
could do that better with URL's and HTML'.

I do not agree that something which looks like a folder is a place, just another kind of document, and a poorer document than a web page. I think that cyberspace has to make use of our innate understanding of space, of connectedness, i.e. it has to be 3D, that's what I think. But even using 3D to make information spaces more easy to use has its difficulties (*). So in conclusion I think that using the term 'Cyberspace' is great on marketing, low on substance, true Cyberspace a la Neuromancer / The Matrix will only occur when VR / AR technology is wideplace, and even then it may not be as useful as it's purported to be.

(*) See Jakob Nielsen's article: "2D is Better Than 3D": http://www.useit.com/alertbox/981115.html

• Place is a Java Interface, not a UI Bill Venners August 04, 2000 at 2:40 PM (2)
  • Article on CyberSpace Sunil Joglekar August 04, 2000 at 7:32 PM (1)
    • a UI for all(jini enabled) devices Michael Gambale October 24, 2000 at 3:44 PM (0)