Nardi, B. A., and Zarmer, C. L. Beyond models and metaphors: Visual formalisms in user interface design. Journal of Visual Languages and Computing, 4, 1993, pp. 5--33.  Home/Search   Document Not in Database   Summary   Related Articles   Check

....can stimulate and initiate cognitive activity . a good user interface helps organise and direct cognition it is not a passive receptacle for thoughts emanating from an internal model, but plays an active role in the problem solving process. Nardi and Znarmer, Beyond Models and Metaphors [437]. Most difficult tasks can accurately be called ill structured : the properties of the solution are only partly understood at the start, no fixed or routine methods exist to solve them, and the criteria for success are only weakly defined. As a result, ill structured problems inherently involve ....

Nardi, B. A., and Zarmer, C. L. Beyond models and metaphors: Visual formalisms in user interface design. Journal of Visual Languages and Computing, 4, 1993, pp. 5--33.

....between the notions of metaphor and illusion are explored from the standpoint of user interface design and analysis for immersive visual reality systems. Despite the emphatic success of metaphors in human computer interface, one should not miss rather justified critique found, e.g. in [26, 30]. Of fundamental importance is the remark that the transfer of meaning, which supports visual metaphors by means of similarities or analogies to real world situations, can be either positive or negative when limitations of real world situations are imposed on the metaphorical meaning [30] As ....

Nardi B.A., Zarmer C.L. Beyond Models and Metaphors: Visual Formalism in User Interface Design // Journal of Visual Languages and Computing (1993) No 4, pp.5--33.

....that they may be parameterized for different user communities [6, 7] In their research, the semantic layer the user interface is held constant. Other groups have explored the notion of reusable user interface widgets that convey semantic information via familiar visual information organizations [12, 19, 14]. They have investigated tables and outlines as potential bridges between the syntactic and semantic levels of communication within the user interface. Often there is a close connection between the visible user interface metaphor of an application and its semantic model [4] Memento s contribution ....

B. A. Nardi and C. L. Zarmer. Beyond models and metaphors: Visual formalisms in user interface design. In Proceedings of the 24th Annual Hawaii International Conference on Systems Science, volume 2, pages 478--493, Koloa, HI., Jan. 1991.

....and from the notation to the virtual machine [31] 26] The structure of the virtual machine, and the nature of the mapping, combine to form the programming paradigm a family of languages that support the same programming techniques. Overly complex mappings can easily compromise performance [23], so one of the main challenges in improving programming language usability is providing metaphors (and hence paradigms) that are appropriate for the user [8] 28] 27] allowing them to learn the behaviour of the language but also to achieve useful tasks in their problem domain. Ideally, a visual ....

B. A. Nardi and C. L. Zarmer, "Beyond models and metaphors: visual formalisms in user interface design". Journal of Visual Languages and Computing, 4(1):5-33, 1993.

....to a single information space, they remain perceptually distinct. Studies by Fisher and Pylyshyn, and by Massaro, are quoted by Carpendale et al. (1995) who use the findings to argue in favor of a smooth visual integration of focus and context. An ethnographic study of spreadsheet users led Nardi and Zarmer (1993) to argue that the mental models, metaphors and notions of cognitive fit that are so popular in HCI are inadequate for systems that support complex problem solving with a rich and precise user interface. What is needed is instead visual formalisms, by which they mean diagrammatic displays with ....

Nardi B, Zarmer C (1993). Beyond models and metaphors: Visual formalisms in user interface design. J. Visual Languages and Computing 4:5-33.

.... a system designer cannot predict all the kinds of exploration a user may wish to do, it is desirable to let the standard facilities constitute a framework within which a user constructs the facilities needed for each occasion of exploration in line with the visual formalisms approach proposed by Nardi and Zarmer (1993). Facilities for programming by demonstration (e.g. Myers 1998) likewise seek to integrate the definition of occasion specific facilities with the normal use of the system, aiming to minimise any selfconscious switch between use and programming . Perhaps our ideal should be to engender in ....

Nardi, B.A. and Zarmer, C.L. (1993) `Beyond Models and Metaphors: Visual Formalisms in User Interface Design'. Journal of Visual Languages and Computing 4, 5--33.

....with the progress of solving the problem. That is, the process of solving the problem will uncover the true nature of the problem. Nardi points out that tools such as spreadsheets help people to solve problems by supporting the incremental development of external, physical models of their problems [84]. This section discusses and contrasts two important properties of these relationships: Control and Effort: Different tools for identical problem domains may differ from each other with respect to the degree of control a person will have over the problem solving process. A high degree of ....

....does the understanding of the problem and its solution. People Tools Problems flexible, implicit spatial notation incremental problem model development Spreadsheets are task specific but not domain oriented. The formula language featured by spreadsheets furnishes task specific primitives [84] such as taking averages, rounding numbers, and operating on dates. However, the notion of cells and formulas is neither domain oriented nor domain orientable. Cells may contain domain oriented data or formulas; however, this domain orientation is implicit. That is, cells may contain fragments of ....

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Nardi, B. and C. Zarmer, "Beyond Models and Metaphors: Visual Formalisms in User Interface Design," Journal of Visual Languages and Computing, pp. 5-33, 1993.

.... software design, domain oriented design environments, design, domain modeling, domain construction, symmetry of ignorance INTRODUCTION Orienting software systems towards specific domains or tasks has been heralded by many researchers as a means of making software both more useful and more usable [9, 11, 20, 21, 29]. Domain oriented software is more usable than generic software because users directly interact with familiar entities and do not need to learn new computer specific concepts [11] It is more useful than generic software because the provided functionality directly targets tasks relevant to the ....

Nardi, B., "Beyond Models and Metaphors: Visual Formalisms in User Interface Design," Journal of Visual Languages and Computing, Vol. 4, pp. 5-33, 1993.

....the software design can be further documented by stating associations, multiplicity, roles, etc. as demonstrated later in Fig. 4.6 in section 4.6. 4.4.2 Maps The landscape is not directly accessible but viewed and manipulated through maps. A map is a well known visual formalism [Har88, NZ93] ideal for presenting (and, in our special case, manipulating) geographic space because of three characteristic properties: Respects spatial relations. A map s purpose is to faithfully describe spatial relations between objects. Obviously, the key property for the formalism s usability in our ....

Bonnie A. Nardi and Craig L. Zarmer. Beyond Models and Metaphors: Visual Formalisms in User Interface Design. Journal of Visual Languages and Computing, 4(1), March 1993.

....made explicit in the external, visible state of the artefact, accessible through a common and relatively formal language This process allows the designers to co ordinate their behaviour around the artefact. 6.2 How can we use better representations 6.2. 1 easy to interpret: visual formalisms Nardi and Zarmer (1993) propose that we should be building a formal language of visual features that will make up a language , with a well defined semantics that will be useful in defining the interface [to the CA] They use the example of the spreadsheet as a visual formalism, shaping the representation of the ....

Nardi, B.A. & Zarmer, C.L. (1993) Beyond models and metaphors: visual formalisms in user interface design. Journal of Visual Languages and Computing, 4, 5-33.

....by visual containment i.e. the landmarks associated with components that are part of a component A are positioned inside the landmark of A. 4.1 Maps Having an underlying geographic space makes a map a strong candidate for viewing the landscape. A map is a well known visual formalism [Har88, NZ93] that enjoys a number of important, commonly understood, properties: Respects spatial relations. The basic purpose of a map is to show spatial relations between objects. Scale determines level of details. Maps come in different scales; by varying the scale we can get overview or details ....

Bonnie A. Nardi and Craig L. Zarmer. Beyond Models and Metaphors: Visual Formalisms in User Interface Design. Journal of Visual Languages and Computing, 4(1), March 1993.

.... people s mental models [HHW84] On the other hand, other researchers believe that familiar, everyday metaphors such as desktops should be the starting point in interface design, since they can be interpreted by users based on prior knowledge of the source of the metaphor [CMK88] Nardi and Zarmer [NZ93], however, argue that neither mental models nor metaphors provide a good basis for the design of interfaces to complex scientific, engineering and business applications. They claim that mental models are impractical, difficult to discover, and provide confusing design guidelines for the developer. ....

....provide confusing design guidelines for the developer. While they accept that metaphors are useful for some purposes, they believe that metaphors lack precision and can lead to confusion due to uncertainty as to whether parts of the user s prior knowledge are applicable. Instead, Nardi and Zarmer [NZ93] propose visual formalisms as a superior basis for interface design. Visual formalisms are defined as diagrammatic displays with well defined semantics for expressing relations. They are based on simple visual objects such as tables, graphs, plots, panels and maps objects that contain their ....

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B. A. Nardi and C. L. Zarmer. Beyond Model and Metaphors: Visual Formalism in User Interface Design. Journal of Visual Languages and Computing, pages 5--33, April 1993.

....unfortunate them; this basic visual formalism can be used in many different contexts, for instance state charts, dance movements, and, as I have done, software project structure, and so on. Nardi et al. argues in favour of using visual formalisms, like plots, panels, maps, outlines, and tables [Nardi et al. 93] Referring to the work of Reisenberg [Reisberg87] on perceptual knowledge , that is, knowledge that can be accessed only through interaction with external representations, they conclude that: In short, we have access to certain kinds of knowledge only when we see it. 15 . Visual formalisms ....

Bonnie A. Nardi, Craig L. Zarmer, Beyond Models and Metaphors: Visual Formalisms in User Interface Design, Journal of Visual Languages and Computing, Vol. 4, No. 1, March 1993

....is the more ambitious nature of the tasks themselves for which computer support is sought. A growing number of sophisticated computer users demand software to help them solve complex, information intensive problems in scientific, engineering and business applications. Nardi and Zarmer [NZ93] make the following statement on how to meet such a demand. We want to focus attention on the way that computers can support cognitive activities that are part of the problem solving associated with the application itself activities such as perceiving trends, seeing patterns, finding individual ....

....to obtain an image. Several systems dealing with the problem of presenting data and their relationships to users have been developed recently in the database and user interface communities (e.g. BOS91, Dea91, Row92, KN92] Proteus [AEM86] Humanoid [Sze90, SLN93] ODDS [FM92] and ACE[JNZM93, NZ93] are representative of model based interface tools. These systems support constructing a declarative model of how the interface should look and behave. This model is constructed by describing how the components (widgets) that represent the objects in the image are assembled using the data and ....

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B. A. Nardi and C. L. Zarmer. Beyond Models and Metaphors: Visual Formalisms in User Interface Design. Journal of Visual Languages and Computing, 4:5--33, 1993.

....words of the design language are the interface elements (buttons, labels, listboxes, etc. and sentences are composed by the layout and the elements attributes (colour, shape, etc. Even higher levels of languages exist, where semantics, system design arguments or user task information is added [17, 24]. In this paper, we will call a design tool which offers high level specification (i.e. a user interface builder (UIB) with WYSIWYG editing, or a tool utilising a formal notation) and some means of evaluation or guideline support a design support tool (DST) The power of a built in critiquing ....

....critic behaviour is needed. Knowledge representation The low level representation approach chosen by us provides the user with a lot of flexibility and programming power, but also implies that a lot of work is needed for rule implementation. Other, higher level methods, e.g. visual formalisms [17] or model based languages [8] seems more usable for the designer, requiring much less low level specification, although they also poses limitations on rule implementation. Some kind of rule representation is necessary for the input, for two reasons: guidelines are most likely to have a ....

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Nardi, B. and Zarmer, C. Beyond models and metaphors: visual formalisms in user interface design. Journal of Visual Languages and Computing, 4(1):5--33, March 1993.

....information. As a consequence, an interactive system that supports these tasks must provide multiple perspectives of the information. Similar dependencies between task and representation have been noted by other cognitive scientists, graphics designers, and computer scientists (e.g. 19] 34] [24]) Third, an example of a commercial application that uses multiple perspectives is Microsoft Word. It enables users to work on their document in three different Views . Each of these views is customized for a certain class of tasks and represents the user s document differently. The Page ....

B. A. Nardi and C. L. Zarmer. Beyond models and metaphors:Visual formalisms in user interface design. Journal of Visual Languages and Computing, 4(1):5-- 33, March 1993.

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