12. Agents
Similarly to the mapping concepts discussed in the previous chapter, agents are orthogonal to the first five concepts of navigation in cyberspace meaning that agent-based concepts can be used to assist the reader in following links, conducting searches, construct sequential paths, navigate in hierarchies and recognize similarities.
In the cyberspace community there is a distinction between guides and agents. Both guides and agents assist the reader in exploring large information spaces. Agents embody a notion of autonomous behavior as well as "intelligence". Guides, on the other hand, represent a human-like metaphor to assist in the navigation task. Contrary to guided tours as discussed in the chapter on sequentialization, which take the reader through a predefined path, guides are much more flexible. They simulate a human guide which helps the user in orienting in unknown territory. The refined version of the guide, the agent, even tries to figure out the needs of the user and to offer solutions based on its assessment of the user's needs. Guides and agents need not necessarily be represented on the computer screen by a virtual person, although for a computer-illiterate user this interface may be more obvious than an abstract text-based representation.