Disorientation in hypermedia environments: Mechanisms to support navigation

The problem of navigation in hypertext is quite often associated with (dis) orientation. We begin this article by making a review of several mechanisms to support navigation after having done a brief presentation of the phenom ena "getting lost in the hyperspace." To simplify and clarify our explanati on we have assembled the various proposals of support to navigation into th e following: 1) solutions regarding the tools to support navigation, 2) sol utions regarding interface and navigation metaphors, and 3) solutions regar ding hardware and other approaches to deal with this problem. The analyses made of each mechanism to support navigation intend to offer different poin ts of view about the pros and cons of their use.