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Knowledge Sharing Virtual World Metaphors
Metaphors
The virtual reality infrastructure,
provides an increased communication channel with users.
Taking advantage of this new channel requires an interface back-bone that is provided by metaphors.
Metaphors hold (potential) scenarios, integrating them in a coherent user interface for applications.
Metaphors also support consistent mapping of abstract concepts and objects to virtual world representation.
While considerably more elaborate, just like today's popular and powerful computer desktop metaphors,
with garbage cans/recyclers, gadgets, windows, and mouse pointers, virtual world metaphors also enable virtual worlds.
In knowledge sharing virtual worlds, metaphors can provide powerful referencing models,
integrating and structuring user experience, and effectiveness.
Abstraction
Metaphors typically vary in their abstraction level, from concrete physical representation of reality
to representation of abstract concepts in imaginary environments. While realistic representation of reality
is sometimes simpler to specify, abstract concepts can often benefit more from virtual reality, which can help represent
them like never before. In any case, realistic representation will remain important until shared Web-based interactive
and reactive solid 3D, with dynamic ambient, musical, and textual sound can easily support precise and flexible representation
of any concept, however physical or abstract. Realistic world and component representation, with natural looks, sound,
and behavior is required to provide optimal infrastructure for advanced collaborative applications, and it is the metaphors
that integrate and drive their effectiveness.
Learning Environments
For virtual world sustained efficiency and for continued user interest,
virtual world applications need to learn from their user interaction
adjusting, improving, and varying their responses and actions,
within the constraints of the application.
This learning process is typically embedded in the metaphor and application.
Usage
When systems also learn from the interaction, effective, high productivity knowledge sharing applications
can start to become the new information-era school, work, and entertainment environments.
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