Web navigation
Web navigation came about with the introduction of the World Wide Web, in 1989 when Timothy Berners-Lee invented it. Once the world wide web was available, web navigation increasingly became a major aspect and role in jobs and everyday lives. With one-third of the world’s population now using the internet, web navigation maintains a global use in today's ever evolving international society. Web navigation is not restricted to just computers, either, as mobile phones and tablets have added avenues for access to the ever-growing information on the web today. The most recent wave of technology which has affected web navigation is the introduction and growth of the smartphone. As of January 2014, 58% of American adults owned a smart phone, and that number is on the rise from previous years. Web navigation has evolved from a restricted action, to something that many people across the world now do on a daily basis.
Internet metaphors
The very first metaphor to describe the Internet was the World Wide Web proposed in 1989. However, uncertainty surrounding the structure and properties of the Internet was apparent in the newspapers of the 1990s that presented a vast array of contradicting visual models to explain the Internet. Spatial constructs were utilized to make the Internet appear as a tangible entity placed within a familiar geographical context. A popular metaphor adopted around the same time was cyberspace coined by William Gibson in his novel "Neuromancer" to describe the world of computers and the society that gathers around them.