This volume provides a thoroughly up-to-date guide to the use of the Social Navigation approach in designing information spaces. The first part focuses on real life systems such as Kalas, GeoNotes and Babble, and examines the rationale for some of the design choices made. The second part takes a detailed look at the underlying principles and ideas that drive the field. Overall this book aims to provide the reader with a wealth of example systems, concepts and practical ideas to help them get the most out of this important new approach. Designing Information Spaces: The Social Navigation Approach will mainly be of interest to anyone designing collaborative information spaces or web sites. It will also be useful for anyone studying or researching topics such as HCI, virtual environments, user interfaces and information retrieval.

Social navigation is a vibrant new field which examines how we navigate information spaces in "real" and "virtual" environments, how we orient and guide ourselves, and how we interact with and use others to find our way in information spaces. This approach brings a new way of thinking about how we design information spaces, emphasising our need to see others, collaborate with them, and follow the trails of their activities in these spaces. Social Navigation of Information Space is the first major work in this field, and includes contributions by many of the originators and key thinkers. It will be of particular interest to researchers and students in areas related to CSCW and human computer interaction. As a thoroughly multi-disciplinary topic, it will also be of interest to researchers in cognitive psychology, social psychology, philosophy, linguistics, sociology, architecture and anthropology.