The metaphors and the rhythm of a poem are not spatially separated. Non-spatial things, such as a set of ideas or mathematical theorems, are not outside one another in the same way. Space surrounds them and lets them be both separate and related. The parts of an automobile engine, the houses in a suburb, the people in a crowd stand outside and alongside one another. As your information space enlarges, put symbols into a hierarchy of collections. Categorize symbols by changing visual attributes like color, border color, border width, font, etc. Then move the visual symbols into clusters, lists, or other structures. Start by dragging and dropping items from the desktop, web pages, and images into your personal or group information space. Making decisions that involve grouping or categorizing items. Examples of uses include: Writing a related work section of a thesis, dissertation, paper, etc. What is VKB for? To organize, and interpret information from a variety of sources. The goal is to allow users to input, organize, and access large amounts of information without having to commit to any particular convention of organization or structure. This means that it allows you to collect and sort information in a very natural, visual environment.

The Visual Knowledge Builder (VKB) is a hypertext information collection system. In terms of spatial manipulation, VKB remains the purest spatial hypertext system currently available. Spatial manipulation had come into its own as a way of organizing that could avoid premature definitions and allow 'incremental formalization'. 3: A VKB screen showing spatial groupings highlighted by the spatial parser. Working in the background, an algorithmic spatial parser highlighted incipient groupings.įig. So Aquanet's successors, VIKI and VKB, dispensed with visible link structure and made spatial manipulation and grouping the central action provided to the user. Aquanet facilitated spatial manipulations and visually indicated links, but tests showed that users were not using the links when working with the program. 2: A Storyspace map showing movable boxes connected by link arrows.Ī further step was made by Aquanet and its descendants ( VIKI, VKB). 1: A screen from Note Cards showing both a global and a local link map.Ī new kind of spatial representation appeared in Storyspace, where the boxes representing text nodes could be moved about independently, forming spatial groupings that might or might not correspond to the link structure shown by lines connecting the boxes.įig. The items were not independently movable, though selecting one might re-center the display and show more linked nodes.įig. Each item appeared as a box linked to other boxes.

In early hypertext programs such as Intermedia and Note Cards, a visual display showed the items linked to the current node.

Storyspace nodes