Information spaces and affordances on the internet

People have always processed information in information spaces of one kind or another. The Internet provides a range of possible information spaces to enable users to interact with each other and with networked information. This paper analyses these information spaces in terms of the affordances they provide to the user, and distinguishes five different sets of spaces. These support the activities of communication, retrieval, searching, browsing and organising. The characteristics of these information spaces are considered and some possible implications of this analysis for the design of Internet access tools discussed. Contributors: Australian Conference on Information Systems [5th : 1994 : Melbourne, Australia] ; Coverage: Rights: