Conceptual tool, Authoring, Multimedia, Design, Hyperspace, Metaphor, Sense-making
The "Chatterbox" is a child's game made of paper: it is also a tool that gives students in multimedia design a way to conceptualise the Internet, or hyperspace. To author effective multimedia for hyperspace we need a tool that makes the structure of cyberspace visible. A metaphor can be such a tool. The metaphor can be commonplace things in our everyday lives that we use to "see" that which is not able to be visible. Using the metaphor tool, the process is to author as if hyperspace were that tool.
There are a plethora of imaginary spatial and non spatial metaphors to use as tools to conceptualise hyperspace and it is challenging to find one that encompasses the dual qualities of depth and surface, or its capacity to make quixotic, serendipitous links that cut across and add to the traditional logic of sense-making. By concretising the concept of hyperspace the Chatterbox tool also makes visible the hidden limitations of any metaphor. It assists the author to make a multimedia product that is much more than just text with moving images. Multimedia that uses to good purpose the unique characteristics of the hyperspace medium will be multimedia that looks like multimedia.
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