A Comparative study of protocol analysis for Spatiality of a Text-based Cyberspace Hui-Lin Lee, Yu-Tung Liu, Sheng-Chih Chen, and Shen-Kai Tang Graduate Institute of Architecture, National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan Abstract. The adaptation of the word cyberspace (Gibson, 1984) following the emergence of the World Wide Web Internet not only succinctly revolutionized the correlation of time and space but also poised to challenge how we view the existing spatial concept. This research tries to use protocol analysis to examine text-based cyberspace, such as bulletin board, chart rooms and so forth, and the objective of this research is to realize the spatiality of cyberspace through the cognitive point of view, and to compare the differences of the definitions and perception ways of spatiality between people with general domain and in design fields. Finally, we validate the existence of cyberspace, where the process not only allows further categorization of spatial elements concluded from the earlier study, but discover that varied backgrounds can affect how a user defines and perceives cyberspace (Strate, 1999). Keywords. Cyberspace; sense of space; protocol analysis Introduction The adoption of the word cyberspace (Gibson, 1984) following the emergence of the World Wide Web Internet not only revolutionized the correlation of time and space but also urged us to challenge the existing concept of space (Cicognani, 1998; Mitchell, 1999; Anders, 1999). Some researchers described cyberspace as illusion, others thought that cyberspace was an incomprehensible and continual-evolving environment (Benedikt, 1991), and the others even wondered that cyberspace might really existed (Markoff, 1992). Until now the definition of cyberspace is still so confused and varied that keep us from coming up with a clearly defined term. Among related studies, Strate (1999), attempting to divide cyberspace into three stages of investigation with whose background as a scholar of communication, indicated that the first stage was to investigate the existence of cyberspace and its reality. The result he proposed was that cyberspace is fictitious, unreal and imaginary. The contradictive definition revealed that the experience of cyberspace was totally different from that of previous conventional spaces. Moreover, Novak (1999), examining it from an abstract perspective of architectural field, reckoned cyberspace as a habitat of imagination and indicate cyberspace as a liquid architecture. All of which not only pointed to the fact that how researchers are increasingly turning to focus on issues related to cyberspace in recent years, but its virtual and far-flung characteristics have triggered a series of explorations and discussions trying to validate its existence (Cicognani, 1998). On the contrary, from the viewpoint of the human mind, the emergence of cyberspace, made possible through a new digital media and new interface, also brought human’s cognitive behavior with a drastically differed spatial experience (Anders, 1999). All these have compelled studies to further examine the existence and definition of cyberspace. Based on these background reviews, Liu (2001) had had a cognitive experiment through interview and observation. Eight students of varied backgrounds in linguistics, architecture, industrial design and visual design were invited as subjects of the experiment. After they browsed the target website, including text-based chat rooms and graph-oriented web sites, the researcher conducted in-depth analysis by observation and interview during the experiment. Preliminary findings of the study did support that the cyberspace participants could indeed perceive a sense of space in