grefen@sun14.cs.pitt.edu (Gregory Grefenstette) (04/02/91)
I'm doing work on hypertext visual interfaces and I would like to be able to prove what seems evident to me, that is, that people can scan information presented in a visual image-based form FASTER than in a plain textual form. But having little psych or human factors background, I don't know of any references that I could use, or even where to begin looking. Please send me some advice about sources for this type of research --Gregory Grefenstette
rick@hanauma.stanford.edu (Richard Ottolini) (04/03/91)
In article <10292@pitt.UUCP> grefen@sun14.cs.pitt.edu (Gregory Grefenstette) writes: > >I'm doing work on hypertext visual interfaces and I >would like to be able to prove what seems evident to me, >that is, that people can scan information presented >in a visual image-based form FASTER than in a plain >textual form. I don't know if this is relevant to your inquiry, but Chinese speed readers claim peak speeds about five times that of alphabetic readers. The fastest I heard from Chinese in soc.culture.china was 50,000 characters per minute and for English 5,000 words a minute. On the average a Chinese word is two characters. Chinese characters are more visual than alphabetic words. However, alphabetic speed readers see the whole word at time, rather the characters, so they can claim to be reading icons too. Chinese characters have the same horizontal width in contrast to alphabetic words, so readers of the later may slow down in predicting where the next word is.
dce@smsc.sony.com (David Elliott) (04/03/91)
In article <10292@pitt.UUCP>, grefen@sun14.cs.pitt.edu (Gregory Grefenstette) writes: |> I'm doing work on hypertext visual interfaces and I |> would like to be able to prove what seems evident to me, |> that is, that people can scan information presented |> in a visual image-based form FASTER than in a plain |> textual form. It depends on the type of information and the space allowed to display the information. For example, it's much slower for me to decipher a pallette of icons that correspond to a set of operations than it is for me to decipher a text menu in the same space. -- ...David Elliott ...dce@smsc.sony.com | ...!{uunet,mips}!sonyusa!dce ...(408)944-4073 ..."His lower lip waved poutily with defiance..."
cl@lgc.com (Cameron Laird) (04/03/91)
In article <1991Apr2.162821.21318@leland.Stanford.EDU> rick@hanauma.stanford.edu (Richard Ottolini) writes: . . . >>that is, that people can scan information presented >>in a visual image-based form FASTER than in a plain >>textual form. > >I don't know if this is relevant to your inquiry, but Chinese speed readers >claim peak speeds about five times that of alphabetic readers. The fastest >I heard from Chinese in soc.culture.china was 50,000 characters per minute >and for English 5,000 words a minute. On the average a Chinese word >is two characters. >Chinese characters are more visual than alphabetic words. However, alphabetic >speed readers see the whole word at time, rather the characters, so they can >claim to be reading icons too. Chinese characters have the same horizontal >width in contrast to alphabetic words, so readers of the later may slow down >in predicting where the next word is. Funny: I just came across this claim for the first time a couple of days ago, andin a completely dif- ferent context. What do professional linguists say on the subject? It surprised me a LOT when I saw it, because rapid reading can only be of what I'll call "internalized" tokens; if you're treating them as icons, then you're doing time-consuming cognitive processing. Is the whole curve shifted? Do "average" Chinese and Japanese literates read five times as fast as their Latin-alphabet counterparts? Why hasn't this come out in all the fuss about national models of public-school education (that is, why hasn't it come to my attention)? This seems like a subject that admits good, interesting experiments; have they been done? -- Cameron Laird USA 713-579-4613 cl@lgc.com (cl%lgc.com@uunet.uu.net) USA 713-996-8546
mcgregor@hemlock.Atherton.COM (Scott McGregor) (04/03/91)
In article <10292@pitt.UUCP>, grefen@sun14.cs.pitt.edu (Gregory Grefenstette) writes: >I'm doing work on hypertext visual interfaces and I >would like to be able to prove what seems evident to me, >that is, that people can scan information presented >in a visual image-based form FASTER than in a plain >textual form. I think I understand what you mean, but how you state your hypothesis probably oversimplifies a key point. Visual image information has more degrees of freedom in conveying information in a limited area of constant size, vs. text. It is therefore conceptually possible to convey more information in that limited area using visual means than textual means. One important difference is that text is read sequentially, whereas a visual image may be processed more holistically. In this respect a viewer may get the "big picture" faster than the reader, but apprehending all the small visual specifics in detail might take as much time as the reading the text. But it might seem faster to the viewer since they get some benefit sooner. (For instance, looking at a sales graph might quickly get across the general trend and some notion of the variation from month to month, but finding the exact amounts for each month in a graph could take as long or longer than referring to a table). The notion of greater degrees of freedom giving the *capability* for greater information density is important because whether that capability is turned into to a real difference is dependent upon the skill of the visual designer. A bad visual design may actually convey less information or take longer to convey it than a textual representation. (E.g. a graph of the %change in monthly growth of sales actually visually obsures information about the absolute values of sales). Obviously, bad textual representations can also obscure information, but it seems that given present educational systems in the US, people have more practice developing writing skills than visual design skills before coming to the job market. So it is important in addressing the superiority of visual presentation to textual to consider the backgrounds of the producers. This is one of the reasons why companies are often surprised when they use "graphics, icons, windows..." in their designs but people don't necessarily find them easy to use--often the people making the selection of the "graphics, icons, and window" weren't trained visual designers but just garden variety software developers. Meanwhile, another company with trained designers may make a big splash with their UI, composed of the same graphics, icons and window primitives but arrayed in a more thoughtful manner by experienced visual designers, (often even despite a poorer underlying representation created by less skilled programmers). An additional complication is that considerable information can be apprehended not by explicit mention in the text, or visual display but by a conventional reference to a body of widely known information. This information can thus be elicited rather than directly conveyed, but the effect on information density is effectively the same. The CYC project at MCC, and other investigations into natural language processing and "common sense" reasoning are applicable here. Much of this work is specifically aimed at linguistic (typically textual) elucidation of conventional wisdom I am not aware of any similar studies of this effect for visual information conventions though conventional use of principles of composition, color theory, and contrast theory is widely known and discussed in depth in Tufte. > But having little psych or human factors background, > I don't know of any references that I > could use, or even where to begin looking. With little HCI background, you might want to start with some things that are more accessible to the layman, such as Edward Tufte's book the "Visual Display of Quantitative Information", or his other book, "Envisioning Information". Don Norman's book, the "Psychology of Everyday Things", also has some useful lay information on the cognitive limitation of human perception. Another accessible and relevant book for the layman is "How to Lie with Statistics". The Tufte books are filled with useful references to more technical references, and you may also find the various publications of and conference proceedings sponsored by ACM SIGCHI society to be of use to you. A reference librarian should be able to help you find any of these books or journals and to narrow your search to particular domains of interest. You might also find information on this sort of thing in other related areas, such as statistics. For instance, I gave a paper on applying principles of graphic design to the creation of business graphics was presented at a Statistical Analysis System (SAS) Users Group International (aka SUGI) conference many years ago. You might find other nuggets of information of this sort in various proceedings of such conferences. Again a refernce librarian should be of help. Scott McGregor Atherton Technology
cash@convex.com (Peter Cash) (04/03/91)
In article <1991Apr2.180348.19733@smsc.sony.com> dce@smsc.sony.com (David Elliott) writes: > >In article <10292@pitt.UUCP>, grefen@sun14.cs.pitt.edu (Gregory Grefenstette) writes: >|> I'm doing work on hypertext visual interfaces and I >|> would like to be able to prove what seems evident to me, >|> that is, that people can scan information presented >|> in a visual image-based form FASTER than in a plain >|> textual form. >It depends on the type of information and the space allowed to display >the information. >For example, it's much slower for me to decipher a pallette of icons >that correspond to a set of operations than it is for me to decipher a >text menu in the same space. Yes, the claim that pictures are always better than words seems to be far from self-evident to me. I suspect that there's more hypertext ideology than science to this particular claim. That isn't to say that a picture in the right place can't often make things much clearer than reams of text; but it's silly to expect pictures to replace words in communicating complex information. If that were the case, then we wouldn't have to wait for hypertext to initiate this superior form of communication--if picture books are better than books with words, then none of our books would have words in them. Even for describing simple tasks, words can be essential. The other day, I tried to reload the stapler built into my Xerox machine. Instead of directions, I found a bunch of icons that were supposed to tell me how to do it. I stood there for several minutes trying to figure these things out, then gave up and walked to another xerox machine. A few words, like "press here" would have been enormously helpful. -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | Die Welt ist alles, was Zerfall ist. | Peter Cash | (apologies to Ludwig Wittgenstein) |cash@convex.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ssingh@watserv1.waterloo.edu (Sneaky Sanj ;-) (04/03/91)
In article <10292@pitt.UUCP> grefen@sun14.cs.pitt.edu (Gregory Grefenstette) writes: > >I'm doing work on hypertext visual interfaces and I >would like to be able to prove what seems evident to me, >that is, that people can scan information presented >in a visual image-based form FASTER than in a plain >textual form. Yes, this makes sense. I can process an image IN PARALLEL. I can see a picture of a horse and immediately I know it is a horse. Reading is done in serial, stimulus -> eye -> iconic mem -> short term -> cognitive processing <=> long term. See, in order to make sense of the word "horse" involves accessing letters, phonemes, AND THEN stored images. You can remove some chunks of overhead by using an image. That's why people love Macs!! and some of us like Windows too. ;-) To sum up, reading is comparable to doing floating point in software, while images is like using an FPU; it exploits hardware we already have. But text is better in that it is more semantically concentrated, ie. horse is five bytes, but a gif of a horse could be 50 000 or more. But you said you wanted throughput... >But having little psych or human factors background, >I don't know of any references that I >could use, or even where to begin looking. Try sci.psychology. >Please send me some advice about sources for this >type of research And post a summary of your replies... >--Gregory Grefenstette Ice sez "Sanjay Singh is dead..." -- "No one had the guts... until now!" $anjay $ingh Fire & "Ice" ssingh@watserv1.[u]waterloo.{edu|cdn}/[ca] ROBOTRON Hi-Score: 20 Million Points | A new level of (in)human throughput... !blade_runner!terminator!terminator_II_judgement_day!watmath!watserv1!ssingh!
thom@garnet.berkeley.edu (Thom Gillespie) (04/03/91)
Nothing is worse for understanding a complex issue than the issue described in terms of icons or pictures only. Nothing is worse for understanding a complex issue than the issue described in terms of words only. But pictures and words? and maybe sound? Now that can convey meaning. TV, Movies, most good magazines and books, spreadsheets with labels, everything written by E.R. Tufte. We aren't talking research here, we are talking common sense -- I realize that sort of approach is considered antathama sit in some circles but it does save a lot of time. Check out most of what Roger N. Shepard , Arnheim, McKim, DuChamp, etc have to say. It's all there. Might also check out Aaron's Code and consider the difference between a meaning generator and a meaning communicator. It's the difference between falling asleep in class and staying awake. --Thom Gillespie
eugene@nas.nasa.gov (Eugene N. Miya) (04/03/91)
In article <1991Apr3.031013.27762@watserv1.waterloo.edu> ssingh@watserv1.waterloo.edu (Sneaky Sanj ;-) writes: >That's why people love Macs!! Actually, I think there are systems better than Macs. Unfortunately, the systems which inspired Macs aren't available outside of Xerox like Tioga. >Try sci.psychology. Oh..... Not very good, too much noise. comp.cog-eng is bettter. --eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@orville.nas.nasa.gov Resident Cynic, Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers {uunet,mailrus,other gateways}!ames!eugene
cash@convex.com (Peter Cash) (04/03/91)
In article <1991Apr3.031013.27762@watserv1.waterloo.edu> ssingh@watserv1.waterloo.edu (Sneaky Sanj ;-) writes: >In article <10292@pitt.UUCP> grefen@sun14.cs.pitt.edu (Gregory Grefenstette) writes: >> >>I'm doing work on hypertext visual interfaces and I >>would like to be able to prove what seems evident to me, >>that is, that people can scan information presented >>in a visual image-based form FASTER than in a plain >>textual form. > >Yes, this makes sense. I can process an image IN PARALLEL. I can see a >picture of a horse and immediately I know it is a horse. Yes, and that's very nice. But what does the picture _mean_? "Rent your horse here"? "Horse crossing"? "Don't forget to feed the horse"? "The horse is a large quadruped ruminant mammal"? "Horses were not indigenous to North America, but were imported by the Conquistadores"? -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | Die Welt ist alles, was Zerfall ist. | Peter Cash | (apologies to Ludwig Wittgenstein) |cash@convex.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ck@voa3.VOA.GOV (Chris Kern) (04/04/91)
In article <1991Apr3.055318.16045@nas.nasa.gov> eugene@wilbur.nas.nasa.gov (Eugene N. Miya) writes: >Actually, I think there are systems better than Macs. Unfortunately, >the systems which inspired Macs aren't available outside of Xerox >like Tioga. Not true. I'm writing this on a Xerox 6085, which is a direct descendant of the Xerox Star, which is a direct descendant of the Xerox Alto. The environment has also been ported to SunOS. The Star, the 6085 and the software for SunOS all were or are sold by Xerox; I don't think they ever sold the Alto, although a few of them made their way outside the company. (I believe it was the Star that inspired the Macintosh.) -- Chris Kern ck@voa3.voa.gov ...uunet!voa3!ck +1 202-619-2020
jls@rutabaga.Rational.COM (Jim Showalter) (04/04/91)
>Even for describing simple tasks, words can be essential. The other day, I >tried to reload the stapler built into my Xerox machine. Instead of >directions, I found a bunch of icons that were supposed to tell me how to >do it. I stood there for several minutes trying to figure these things out, >then gave up and walked to another xerox machine. A few words, like "press >here" would have been enormously helpful. Indeed! I have stared in frustration at the little ikons on the tags on clothing trying to figure out what temperature to use, whether to use bleach, etc. The little ikons are no help at best and downright misleading at worst. One could claim that this was just a lousy job of ikonography, but I ASSUME that some international standards committee agreed on them, so they must have thought they did a good job. I think companies like to use ikons on labels not because they work better than words but because it "solves" the multilingual marketing problem. -- ***** DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed herein are my own, except in the realm of software engineering, in which case I've borrowed them from incredibly smart people.
raveling@Unify.com (Paul Raveling) (04/04/91)
In article <1991Apr2.180348.19733@smsc.sony.com>, dce@smsc.sony.com (David Elliott) writes: [about speed of info transfer for images versus text] > It depends on the type of information and the space allowed to display > the information. > > For example, it's much slower for me to decipher a pallette of icons > that correspond to a set of operations than it is for me to decipher a > text menu in the same space. In some current product design I've been incorporating text labels IN icons, and think this provides the best of both. Probably the biggest problem with icons is that they can be ambiguous, not giving new users/viewers a sufficient cue to have a good sense of which meaning the REALLY want to confer. Adding a bit of text solves this, and provides a natural way for people to begin associating the icon with the corresponding concept. Another advantage is that the image supports the text. It's often possible to use image info to allow using terser text than would be needed if using ONLY text. ------------------ Paul Raveling Raveling@Unify.com
mcgregor@hemlock.Atherton.COM (Scott McGregor) (04/04/91)
In article <1991Apr03.152708.147@convex.com>, cash@convex.com (Peter Cash) writes: >Yes, and that's very nice. But what does the picture _mean_? "Rent your >horse here"? "Horse crossing"? "Don't forget to feed the horse"? "The horse >is a large quadruped ruminant mammal"? "Horses were not indigenous to North >America, but were imported by the Conquistadores"? I don't understand how this is *necessarily* different between an image vs. a textual representation. This is not a matter of semantics, but of pragmatics. An image of a horse and the textual string "horse" have precisely the same semantics (*mean* the same thing), but the question of how the image or text is intended to be used is dependent upon the speaker's intent, the context of the conversation, and other situational aspects most often analyzed using "speech act" linguistic theory. Peter's apology to Wittgenstein belies an awareness of this point. So, I can't see how the representational form (picture vs. text) matters unless Peter is making a specific claim about the context in which the communication takes place, and is saying that a textual representation would have a conventional usage in that context, and that a pictorial representation not being conventionally used that way would therefore be confusing. If so, I do not agree that it is inherently more likely that text would be more conventional. A picture of a horse on a yellow diamond on a roadway is more conventionally used to mean "horse crossing" than the text string "horse" alone on a sign in that situation. Whether a picture or a text string is less ambiguous due to its conventional use in a given situation can go either way. Or does Peter claim that people would conventionally attempt to give more semantic meaning (i.e. give a whole sentance) with text than they bother to in general with pictures. I might agree, because picture production is often more time consuming, and *semantically* equivalent text often consumes less space. I am curious to understand if others assume the former interpretation or the latter. To get back to the original question about the superiority of pictures over text, let me note that while I am sure Peter had an intent to convey his position on this issue through his text, it wasnt' perceived by me. This does not at all mean that a graphic rendition would have improved the matter (i.e. graphics is not superior for all situations), but demonstrates that precise communication in both forms is troublesome even by skilled practitioners. Moreover, in evaluating the superiority or inferiority of a particular form, it is important to consider the "pragmatics" aspects of the situation such as existing conventions, the likelihood of skillful creation (by the sender) and interpretation (by the recipients), as well as the likely costs of incomplete or incorrect interpretation. Scott McGregor
davidm@uunet.UU.NET (David S. Masterson) (04/05/91)
>>>>> On 3 Apr 91 15:27:08 GMT, cash@convex.com (Peter Cash) said: Peter> In article <1991Apr3.031013.27762@watserv1.waterloo.edu> Peter> ssingh@watserv1.waterloo.edu (Sneaky Sanj ;-) writes: Sneaky> Yes, this makes sense. I can process an image IN PARALLEL. I can see a Sneaky> picture of a horse and immediately I know it is a horse. Peter> Yes, and that's very nice. But what does the picture _mean_? "Rent your Peter> horse here"? "Horse crossing"? "Don't forget to feed the horse"? "The Peter> horse is a large quadruped ruminant mammal"? "Horses were not Peter> indigenous to North America, but were imported by the Conquistadores"? Of course this depends on the representation of the horse in the picture and the context around the picture. For instance: 1. A picture of horses near barn next to another picture of a map representing where the barn is. (I'm sure something could be arrived at to represent "rent".) 2. A picture of a sign with a horse over an X. 3. A picture of a person providing food for a horse. 4. This one shows the problem with language because I don't have any context for the word "ruminant" (I didn't look it up). I think an intelligently designed picture would convey the meaning to me. 5. Picture of world showing horses moving from Spain to North America. If you think about it, pictures can be as much of a language as text. Therefore, the same requirements are on those pictures as are on textual language. That is, you will only understand them if you have the context in which they are being applied (current surroundings and previous experience). Man has had a few thousands years of previous experience to "fine tune" textual language whereas the idea of using pictures is relatively new and, so, doesn't have that refinement. Trying to understand picture (or video!) language can be as much of a problem as trying to read (say) Chinese when you've only learned English unless the pictures (or videos!) has been intelligently designed to play upon universal ideas. Hypermedia systems should not focus on one type of medium (pictures in this case), but rather merge as many different mediums as possible. This will provide much more surroundings by which people can make the connection to previous experience. -- ==================================================================== David Masterson Consilium, Inc. (415) 691-6311 640 Clyde Ct. uunet!cimshop!davidm Mtn. View, CA 94043 ==================================================================== "If someone thinks they know what I said, then I didn't say it!"
jpenny@ms.uky.edu (Jim Penny) (04/05/91)
cash@convex.com (Peter Cash) writes: >In article <10292@pitt.UUCP>, grefen@sun14.cs.pitt.edu (Gregory Grefenstette) writes: >|> I'm doing work on hypertext visual interfaces and I >|> would like to be able to prove what seems evident to me, >|> that is, that people can scan information presented >|> in a visual image-based form FASTER than in a plain >|> textual form. >>For example, it's much slower for me to decipher a pallette of icons >>that correspond to a set of operations than it is for me to decipher a >>text menu in the same space. I would like to see you assign an icon for the operation of "compute the Delauney triangulation" or "apply duality map D" or "compute the Symmetric difference" or ... The assertion is just plain silly, as it amounts to the assertion that rebuses or pictograms are easier to understand than alphabetic languages. There is at least two thousand years of history which points the other way. However, there are situations in which people have notorious difficulty understanding information presented textually; qualitative information is foremost amoung these. Here a graphic display can be very helpful. Realize that people may be able to find pictures which they are very accustomed to faster than they are able to read the corresponding words in a box, but the words in a box approach is immensely more flexible and is more robust when novel concepts must be communicated. Jim Penny
ewright@convex.com (Edward V. Wright) (04/05/91)
In article <jpenny.670789735@s.ms.uky.edu> jpenny@ms.uky.edu (Jim Penny) writes: >Realize that people may be able to find pictures which they are >very accustomed to faster than they are able to read the corresponding >words in a box, but the words in a box approach is immensely more >flexible and is more robust when novel concepts must be communicated. I believe this depends more on the type of concept rather than its novelty or complexity. People most often think in some verbal language, usually the language they learned in childhood. This is not always true, however. In specific situations, people may think in graphics or mathematics. (Of course, the ability to think in these terms may vary dramatically from one person to another -- not everyone is a daVinci or an Einstein -- and given the quality of public educatin system today, I would not be surprised to find that most Americans cannot think mathematically at all.) The ideal interface, I think, would minimize the amount of translation that the viewer has to do. To go back to the previous example of the horse, if the ideas that you wish to convey concern the gross anatomy of the horse, then a single picture may be preferable to any amount of description. The reason being that the user reading the description would attempt to build up an internal picture of the horse anyway. Similiarly, if mathematical equations are described in verbal terms, a translation step is involved. Expressing mathematical or vebal concepts in graphic terms also involves a translation step. Unless the concepts are very simple and the translation obvious, this step can be time-consuming and prone to error. That's why icons in well- designed computer programs are generally limited to representing simple concepts with clear analogies to real-world objects. A good example is the paint brush and other tools in a paint program: because they look like real-world tools, they create the illusion that the user is selecting a physical tool when he picks one of them. The underlying complexity of the code that implements the tool is hidden from the user. But if the software implemented a more complex function without an obvious real- world analogy -- let's say, an 8-by-8 Gaussian convolution -- an iconic representation would be a poor choice.
hultquis@nas.nasa.gov (Jeff P. M. Hultquist) (04/05/91)
Sneaky> Yes, this makes sense. I can process an image IN PARALLEL. I can see a Sneaky> picture of a horse and immediately I know it is a horse. Peter> Yes, and that's very nice. But what does the picture _mean_? Peter> "Rent your horse here"? "Horse crossing"? "Don't forget to feed Peter> the horse"? "The horse is a large quadruped ruminant mammal"? davidm> Of course this depends on the representation of the horse in davidm> the picture and the context around the picture. For instance: davidm> ... davidm> 4. This one shows the problem with language because I don't davidm> have any context for the word "ruminant" (I didn't look it davidm> up). I think an intelligently designed picture would convey davidm> the meaning to me. Yick! I think that davidm _should_ look up the word 'ruminant' and then give us his opinion. I find it difficult to believe that the power of text can be ever approached by 'point-and-grunt' user interfaces. Text gives us the power to develop and name abstract concepts; icons don't do this so well. -- -- Jeff Hultquist hultquis@nas.nasa.gov NASA - Ames Research Center (415) 604-4970 Disclaimer: "I am not a rocket scientist."
xiaoy@ecf.toronto.edu (XIAO Yan) (04/05/91)
In article <jpenny.670789735@s.ms.uky.edu> jpenny@ms.uky.edu (Jim Penny) writes: (Lines deleted...) >I would like to see you assign an icon for the operation of >"compute the Delauney triangulation" or "apply duality map D" >or "compute the Symmetric difference" or ... > >The assertion is just plain silly, as it amounts to the assertion that >rebuses or pictograms are easier to understand than alphabetic languages. >There is at least two thousand years of history which points the other >way. Ever learnt a language Called Chinese which doesn't use alphabetic letters? > >However, there are situations in which people have notorious difficulty >understanding information presented textually; qualitative information >is foremost amoung these. Here a graphic display can be very helpful. > >Realize that people may be able to find pictures which they are >very accustomed to faster than they are able to read the corresponding >words in a box, but the words in a box approach is immensely more >flexible and is more robust when novel concepts must be communicated. > >Jim Penny Damn right. Now when I return home, I don't look up street name and number anymore. -YX
folta@tove.cs.umd.edu (Wayne Folta) (04/05/91)
I think one area in which pictures win out over prose is in describing relationships. I know that I am always running to a markerboard to draw diagrams to explain things. Everything ranging from how a filesystem is laid out or how a network is laid out to where mammals fall in the biological hierarchy. Imagine electronic circuits described in words! As another example, I am now taking a class in modal logic. We are always drawing diagrams of possible worlds to help our understanding. Words alone certainly don't hack it. (Although ideographs alone wouldn't hack it either.) Of course, things are often labelled by words in diagrams; they are not totally pictorial. But the words are connected with lines, placed inside different shapes and beside icons, even written in different fonts, etc.. And often we compress out unnecessary information by using pictures only. For example, if I am describing a network, I might draw two or three nodes on the network that are unlabeled, but whose shape tells you that they are PCs. They are not labelled, because they only represent the fact that there are lots of PCs hooked up. On the other hand, major nodes are labelled with names. I believe that diagrams and pictures have this power to indicate presence and at the same time anonymity, which allows you to focus more clearly on the big picture. As for palettes of words beating palettes of icons, it depends on the task. I know that in a drawing program, I find icons to be much more descriptive of the drawing tools than words would be. For example, in FreeHand, what would CONNECTOR mean? If you look at its icon, you see that it creates a point that joins a curving line segment and a straight line segment. And what does LINE mean, as opposed to STRAIGHT LINE or FREEHAND LINE? Also, once you have an icon, adding information to it is often very easy. For example, in FreeHand the tools draw shapes, by default, from corner to corner. If you enable an option to draw from the center, the icons change so that there is an x in the center of the shape. Without taking any more room, you have more information, and I think it is more intuitive than words would be. As another example, wordprocessors often have little icons that show little lines that are left-justified (ragged right), right-justified (ragged left), centered, and fully justified. I think these are clearer than words by a long shot. In this example, icons also eliminate problems with terminology. For example, what I call right-justified (meaning ragged left), other people use to mean fully-justified, with an implicit [left- and] right-justified. Similarly in drawing programs where FREEHAND LINE might mean lines that aren't necessarily straight to me, but straight lines at any angle to you. -- Wayne Folta (folta@cs.umd.edu 128.8.128.8)
alan@tivoli.UUCP (Alan R. Weiss) (04/06/91)
In article <10292@pitt.UUCP> grefen@sun14.cs.pitt.edu (Gregory Grefenstette) writes: > >I'm doing work on hypertext visual interfaces and I >would like to be able to prove what seems evident to me, >that is, that people can scan information presented >in a visual image-based form FASTER than in a plain >textual form. > >But having little psych or human factors background, >I don't know of any references that I >could use, or even where to begin looking. > >Please send me some advice about sources for this >type of research > >--Gregory Grefenstette Better yet, post it to the net. I would also be interested in intelligent discourse on the subject. _______________________________________________________________________ Alan R. Weiss TIVOLI Systems, Inc. E-mail: alan@tivoli.com 6034 West Courtyard Drive, E-mail: alan@whitney.tivoli.com Suite 210 Voice : (512) 794-9070 Austin, Texas USA 78730 Fax : (512) 794-0623 _______________________________________________________________________
jpenny@ms.uky.edu (Jim Penny) (04/06/91)
xiaoy@ecf.toronto.edu (XIAO Yan) writes: >In article <jpenny.670789735@s.ms.uky.edu> jpenny@ms.uky.edu (Jim Penny) writes: > (Lines deleted...) >>The assertion is just plain silly, as it amounts to the assertion that >>rebuses or pictograms are easier to understand than alphabetic languages. >>There is at least two thousand years of history which points the other >>way. > > Ever learnt a language Called Chinese which doesn't use alphabetic > letters? Of course there are two living counter-examples, Chinese which is not character oriented, but neither is it especially pictogram oriented either (most characters have long ago lost any pictorial content). A second partial example is Japanese which uses kanji, as well as katakana, hiragana, and romanji. This is not to be insulting to Japanese tradition, but it is almost incomprehensible that a people would insist on writing primarily in a foreign language. It is as if all Europeans still wrote only in church Latin. Other examples of pictogram languages are classical Mayan, old Egyptian. I am sure there are others. An example of a neither alphabetic nor pictographic writing is the cuneiform system of Sumeria. Nevertheless, a good case can be made that alphabetic or syllabic writing systems are superior to non-alphabetic systems. First, I know of no culture that willing converted from an alphabetic representation to a pictographic one. Second, there are many cultures that have partially or completly changed from pictographic to alphabetic representations, these include Korea (partially), and Vietnam. Other cultures have converted from complicated alphabets to simpler alphabets (e.g. Turkey). In every case, there is anecdotal evidence that it is easier to teach illiterate members of the culture to read and write using an alphabet than the previous system. None of the above should be taken as support for traditional English spelling. It is an atrocious system, and I would like to see it reformed. It is also true that adult literate readers of alpahabetic languages do not read a character at a time, but rather process far larger chunks. For defenders of the Chinese writing system I have three questions: 1) how many characters are in use today in written Chinese? 2) how many characters were in use 1000 years ago in written Chines? 3) If Chinese writing is inherently simpler than an alphabetic systems, how is this trend to be explained? In any event, this is a detour from the original writer who claimed that people could invariably process pictures faster than text: 1) It is not clear that Chinese characters are pictures in the sense the original poster intended. If they are considered to be pictures, then it is not clear that a word written in an alphabetic language is not a picture. 2) If pictures are inherently superior, consider the following series of questions: a) I will select at random a word from the dictionary: you may draw as many pictures as you would like, but no letters, to convey that word to a third party. Will this be easy? b) I will select at random a word from the dictionary; you may draw as many letters as you want to convey the word to a third party. Will this be easy? c) Which of scenerios a and b are a parlor game? 3) What does the following picture mean? _ _ / \ / \ / \ / \ \ / \ / \_/ \_/ ---------------------- (hint: it is seen in my kitchen) It appears on my dishwasher, and means heat dry!
jwtlai@watcgl.waterloo.edu (Jim W Lai) (04/06/91)
In article <jpenny.670886764@s.ms.uky.edu> jpenny@ms.uky.edu (Jim Penny) writes: >xiaoy@ecf.toronto.edu (XIAO Yan) writes: >> Ever learnt a language Called Chinese which doesn't use alphabetic >> letters? > >Of course there are two living counter-examples, Chinese which is >not character oriented, but neither is it especially pictogram oriented >either (most characters have long ago lost any pictorial content). > >A second partial example is Japanese which uses kanji, >as well as katakana, hiragana, and romanji. This is not to be insulting >to Japanese tradition, but it is almost incomprehensible that a >people would insist on writing primarily in a foreign language. >It is as if all Europeans still wrote only in church Latin. Before the introduction of Chinese characters, Japan had no native written language of note. This formed kanji. (Katakana and hiragana are phonetic alphabets.) Is it any surprise the Japanese still use kanji when writers of English use an alphabet which is very similar to the Roman alphabet? The smallest decomposable parts in the two systems have not changed a great deal. >For defenders of the Chinese writing system I have three questions: >1) how many characters are in use today in written Chinese? >2) how many characters were in use 1000 years ago in written Chines? >3) If Chinese writing is inherently simpler than an alphabetic systems, >how is this trend to be explained? Question 3 implies the existence of a trend (presumably an increase). I fail to see what the number of ideograms has on the simplicity of a system. Would using Morse code instead of the normal alphabet make things simpler, as there are only four letters in such a system (dot, dash, pause, long pause)? My point is that if we are to judge cognitive performance, we need a metric. "Simpler" and "more intuitive" are ill-defined terms to begin with.
thom@garnet.berkeley.edu (Thom Gillespie) (04/06/91)
Ok Jim, what does this picture mean and [hint: it was somewhere in your last posting] Next time you include a picture from your kitchen please include the context ... or at least the dryer. --Thom Gillespie
mcgregor@hemlock.Atherton.COM (Scott McGregor) (04/06/91)
In article <jpenny.670886764@s.ms.uky.edu>, jpenny@ms.uky.edu (Jim Penny) writes: > people would insist on writing primarily in a foreign language. > It is as if all Europeans still wrote only in church Latin. No, Japanese use only an icon set from China, not a foreign language. Many Europeans still write with the *Latin* character set. Others use a Greek character set or a mixture of the two. The Russians aren't using foreign languages when they use Cyrillic, but they are traditional ways of making marks which were introduced with other languages. The same is true for Japanese iconography. > First, I know of no culture that willing converted from an >alphabetic representation to a pictographic one. The accepted form for writing has often changed with the conquerors preferences. In the indian penisula and in Africa, there are places where writing styles have changed multiple times. The examples given below are merely selected from more recent history when European cultures impressed themselves upon Asian cultures. > Second, >there are many cultures that have partially or completly changed >from pictographic to alphabetic representations, these include >Korea (partially), and Vietnam. > For defenders of the Chinese writing system I have three questions: > 1) how many characters are in use today in written Chinese? > 2) how many characters were in use 1000 years ago in written Chines? > 3) If Chinese writing is inherently simpler than an alphabetic systems, > how is this trend to be explained? In general the number of words has expanded over time, if for no other reason than due to new inventions. New words often derive from compounding of old forms, from metaphors, and other forms of catecresis. Since Chinese words often map to a single icon, it should not be surprising that more Chinese icons are in existance today. Nor should it be surprising that in common english typography, accents, and other diacritical marks not typical in earlier english typography are now more frequently used due to adoption of words from other languages which do use them frequently. > 1) It is not clear that Chinese characters are pictures in the sense the > original poster intended. If they are considered to be pictures, > then it is not clear that a word written in an alphabetic language > is not a picture. Very true. I agree with most of the other comments (excised above) that stated that pictograph languages were not inherently easier to teach or use. > 2) If pictures are inherently superior, consider the following series > of questions: > a) I will select at random a word from the dictionary: > you may draw as many pictures as you would like, but no letters, > to convey that word to a third party. Will this be easy? > b) I will select at random a word from the dictionary; > you may draw as many letters as you want to convey the word to > a third party. Will this be easy? This is not the antithesis of a. A more correct antithesis is I show you a picture, choose one word and see if the listener draws the same picture I showed you. This is also a parlor game, though not one played very often any more, largely because of arguments concerning whether the drawings are identical enough. This says something about both skills in drawing vs. recognizing pictures, and also about precision of identity in pictures vs. words. c) Which of scenerios a and b are a parlor game? As I pointed out above, some of the parlor game aspect has to do with average people's (in)abilities to draw well quickly. Consider also that many people play a variant of dictionary in which a word is chosen, and everyone writes a definition. The word selector reads all the definitions, including the one from the dictionary, and people have to guess which one actually came from the dictionary. Note that this is essentially a strictly verbal game (neither alphabetic nor pictographic) but challenging nontheless. Which brings us to the final point: Neither pictures nor verbal (neither oral nor textual) processing can be held to be superior in all cases. Rather the most superior selection is a function of the skills of the sender of the communication, the skills of the receivers of the communication, and the conventional means for communicating the chosen subject matter in the chosen medium, place and time. Now, on a related topic, P.T Cox and T. Pietzykowski wrote in Proeedings International Computer Science Conference, 1988, pp 695-704, Using a Pictorial Representation to Combine Dataglow and Object Orientation in a Language Independent Programming Mechanism. "The standard textual representation of programming languages has many shorcomings, such as the abstract syntax inherited from Indo-European languages, enforced sequentiality, the necessity for variables, and the confusion between logical and mnemonic information... The use of a pictorial representaion for programming is proposed as a means for overcoming all of these shortcomings, incorporating the powerful features of AI languages and removing the bias towards Indo-European languages, making programming equallly accessible to users whose natural language relies on ideograms, such as Chinese... " The proliferation of microcomputers in the last decade has highlighted an important problem in the production of software, a problem normally referred to as "Chineese computing". Existing Algol-like programming languages, for long time the primary tool of software development, are intimately connected with the linguistic roots of Indo-European languages, based on a small symbolic alphabet and intricate syntax using punctuation symbols. Such languages are alien to programmers whose natural languages are rooted in the Chinese ideographic language paradigm. Lisp and Prolog rely less heavily on the syntactic conventions of Indo_European langauges, however, they do rely fundamentally on the concept of "variable", a meaninglyess symbol that represents some unknown object. Languages based on ideograms can express only meaningful concepts, so variables are unnatural in such langaugaes... "...[A] pictorial formalism...[is defined which] completely avoid[s] variables and the symbolic syntax inherited from Indo-European languages. The result is a powerful universal programming language which is equally accessible to users from all linguistic backgrounds... "The greatest shortcoming of all text based programming languages... are variables.Variables used to represent data in programming languages originated from logic, shich again stems from Indo-European languages. The special property of a vairable is that it is a symbol used to represent some unknown object. This concept is most natural in languages in which new entities can be constructed from smaller meaningless symbols (alphabet) that impose no meaning on the new entity. By contrast, languages based on ideograms can express only meaninglful concepts, so it is impossible to introduce a new sumbol that represents some unkonwn object. The existence of variables therefore make programming languages much less intuitive for those whose natural languages is ideographic such as Chinese, Japanese and Korean." <End of quote> Questions for readers: 1) Is, as is the authors claimed above, a pictorial programming language "*equally* acssible to users from all linguistic backgrounds"? Or does it skew the field the other way (i.e. against Indo-European language users)? 2) Is the concept of a variable really more difficult to users of ideographic language users? How are other mathematical uses of variables taught? Does mathematical literacy negate this alleged deficit? 3) If the availability of meaningless strings is the key to use of variables, why is it so important to choose meaningful names for variables instead of nonsense or conventionally meaningless names such as "X"? 4) Would you like to use such a pictographic programming language? Why or why not? Inquiring minds want to know... Scott McGregor
beb@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (Brian E. Bradley) (04/06/91)
A recent poster noted that the CYC project, which is a fascinating attempt to create "common sense" in a computer, may be very useful in user interface applications. It certainly would be handy, but CYC also demonstrates that general common sense (rather than a small number of rules embedded in a product) is an enormous and expensive resource, requiring huge databases and considerable computing power. It is much too big to implement on a chip set for example, and the situation is unliklely to change for several years. And, the databases required would fill more than one CD-ROM in a full implementation: this approach to common sense is much larger than most implementations it would be installed to support! CYC deserves cheers for its ambitious attempt to tackle a problem which may not actually be solvable. Their particular approach to the problem may be widely available and widely used in a few years: more likely, some future applications will take the enormous set of data representations developed for CYC and cannibalize parts of it or massage their data into a more compressed form and arrangement using clever algorithms. So don't hold your breath waiting for it for your Mac II multimedia applications. But you've gotta love the CYC team for trying!
ph274cc@prism.gatech.EDU (Charles Cleveland) (04/07/91)
Sorry if you've seen this twice, but the Newsgroup line in the article I was responding to started with an alt group, and the response I got on posting from hydra (which doesn't carry alt groups) suggested that all the other groups might have been ignored. In article <1991Apr5.032157.10421@ecf.utoronto.ca> xiaoy@ecf.toronto.edu (XIAO Yan) writes: )In article <jpenny.670789735@s.ms.uky.edu> jpenny@ms.uky.edu (Jim Penny) writes: ) (Lines deleted...) )>I would like to see you assign an icon for the operation of )>"compute the Delauney triangulation" or "apply duality map D" )>or "compute the Symmetric difference" or ... )> )>The assertion is just plain silly, as it amounts to the assertion that )>rebuses or pictograms are easier to understand than alphabetic languages. )>There is at least two thousand years of history which points the other )>way. ) ) Ever learnt a language Called Chinese which doesn't use alphabetic ) letters? ) Let's get clear what we are talking about. It seems to me some confusion may have drifted into this conversation. (Let me say at the outset that Yan's comment and its context only precipitated this realization as a consequence of my own peculiar psychology. I am not directly addressing here what he confronts in his remark.) We seem to be talking about various interfaces and whether an iconic or verbal approach best communicates the situation at hand, in general. In this discussion, this often seem to be equated with the question whether a non-alphabetic or an alphabetic representation works best. These are two different things entirely. From the point of view of the first question, written English and Chinese are on the same side of the fence, while from that of the second, they are on opposite sides. Both written English and written Chinese are transcriptions of a spoken tongue, and come equipped with the syntax and grammar of the languages they represent. The majority of Chinese ideograms are quite abstract and it would be difficult to reconstruct the meaning of most expressions even if given the fundamental pictorial roots from which ideograms were derived, especially in the absence of the grammatical and syntactic underpinnings of spoken Chinese; certainly they are not likely candidates for use on international road signs in the near future. (What is the Chinese ideogram for `restroom'. And what am I doing in here with all these women, anyway?) At the level of this discussion, the only basic difference between written Chinese and written English is that English sorts things out by phonemes (or at least tried to before the Great Vowel Shift) and Chinese sorts things out word by word. There is little difference between a radio button labelled `Trees' and one labelled with the corresponding Chinese ideogram. Similarly, there would be little difference between a verbal interface using English and one using Chinese. Possibly none at all for some of my relatives. Whether one reads faster in a language based on words as a unit instead of phonemes has virtually nothing to do with how readily a verbal interface, as opposed to an iconic interface, communicates functionality to the user. To the extent that a strictly iconic interface can `universally' convey functionality, it must rely only on relationships that are `universally' understood, and which are expressible in some compatible graphical form. Of course, the smaller the universe the easier this is to accomplish, and (within that smaller scope) the more powerful and transparent that interface is. Thus, for example, the Mac's interface embodies a grammar (a relatively European grammar) which is simple enough for many people to pick up more or less on the fly. Its (or rather Xerox's) great insight was realizing that most of the things one wants to do on a computer are quite ordinary, and therefore essentially like something else with which we are already familiar, such as, but not necessarily restricted to, actions we routinely engage on at desktops, trashcans, filing cabinets, folders, etc. (I would prefer baseball myself. It has everything the desktop does and a great deal more on the side. Pinch hitters, umpires, relief pitchers, foul balls, stolen bases. What a senior project. We're talking real computer science here. Probably have to be multitasking, though. Or soccer --- even more universally accessible. But both may be sexist. Sexist? Sex --- I can see the ad campaign now. How universal can you get? But I digress....). It is primarily the relatively simple, transparent, and inflexible grammar of that interface, and not whether it uses an icon for a floppy disk instead of the set of characters "Floppy Disk", that makes it so accessible to many people, and paradoxically, such a trial for people who prefer non-iconic interfaces. While some of the latter folk might also complain that many icons are obscure and non-intuitive, so what? Why should we expect anything else? Think of such icons as mnemonics, instead of as documentation in their own right. I admit that many purveyors of graphical interfaces are themselves to blame for pushing the belief that icons are self-documenting. But so what if they aren't? In WordPerfect, Alt-F3 means `Reveal Codes'. This is transparent? Most of the icons on the Word for Windows ruler bar might as well BE Chinese ideograms as far as I'm concerned, but once you know what they do they serve as fairly effective reminders which require little precious screen real estate. I'm not actually a Word for Windows user* (though I've played one on TV). My wife uses WfW in her work and I've indirectly become quite familiar with it. We have spent significant corporate funds on third party books explicating the intricacies of WfW in order to penetrate the dense thickets of its interface and persuade it to heel to professional requirements. Once mastered, the iconic interface is quite nice to use. But for the novice, expecially the demanding novice, it can be just as intimidating as the MSDOS prompt. * I use TeX myself --- in case anyone gets the radical idea from reading this that I think graphical interfaces are the greatest thing since sliced bread. I never did figure out on my own how to change the name of a Mac icon. Stupid, hunh? I kept looking for something in the Menus. Where is that documented anyway? )> )>however, there are situations in which people have notorious difficulty )>understanding information presented textually; qualitative information ])>is foremost amoung these. Here a graphic display can be very helpful. )> )>Realize that people may be able to find pictures which they are )>very accustomed to faster than they are able to read the corresponding )>words in a box, but the words in a box approach is immensely more )>flexible and is more robust when novel concepts must be communicated. )> )>Jim Penny ) ) Damn right. Now when I return home, I don't look up street name ) and number anymore. ) Excuse my impartial ignorance, Yan, but what do you do instead? )-YX -- Life would be so much easier if we could just look at the source code. -- Charles Cleveland, School of Physics, Ga Tech, Atlanta, GA 30332-0430 uucp: ...!gatech!prism!ph274cc INTERNET: ph274cc@prism.gatech.edu Newsgroups: alt.hypertext,comp.cog-eng,comp.graphics,comp.multimedia,comp.software-eng Subject: Re: Images vs. Text Summary: Expires: References: <1991Apr2.180348.19733@smsc.sony.com> <1991Apr02.235121.17834@convex.com> <jpenny.670789735@s.ms.uky.edu> <1991Apr5.032157.10421@ecf.utoronto.ca> Sender: Followup-To: Distribution: na Organization: School of Physics, Georgia Tech Keywords: In article <1991Apr5.032157.10421@ecf.utoronto.ca> xiaoy@ecf.toronto.edu (XIAO Yan) writes: )In article <jpenny.670789735@s.ms.uky.edu> jpenny@ms.uky.edu (Jim Penny) writes: ) (Lines deleted...) )>I would like to see you assign an icon for the operation of )>"compute the Delauney triangulation" or "apply duality map D" )>or "compute the Symmetric difference" or ... )> )>The assertion is just plain silly, as it amounts to the assertion that )>rebuses or pictograms are easier to understand than alphabetic languages. )>There is at least two thousand years of history which points the other )>way. ) ) Ever learnt a language Called Chinese which doesn't use alphabetic ) letters? ) Let's get clear what we are talking about. It seems to me some confusion may have drifted into this conversation. (Let me say at the outset that Yan's comment and its context only precipitated this realization as a consequence of my own peculiar psychology. I am not directly addressing here what he confronts in his remark.) We seem to be talking about various interfaces and whether an iconic or verbal approach best communicates the situation at hand, in general. In this discussion, this often seem to be equated with the question whether a non-alphabetic or an alphabetic representation works best. These are two different things entirely. From the point of view of the first question, written English and Chinese are on the same side of the fence, while from that of the second, they are on opposite sides. Both written English and written Chinese are transcriptions of a spoken tongue, and come equipped with the syntax and grammar of the languages they represent. The majority of Chinese ideograms are quite abstract and it would be difficult to reconstruct the meaning of most expressions even if given the fundamental pictorial roots from which ideograms were derived, especially in the absence of the grammatical and syntactic underpinnings of spoken Chinese; certainly they are not likely candidates for use on international road signs in the near future. (What is the Chinese ideogram for `restroom'. And what am I doing in here with all these women, anyway?) At the level of this discussion, the only basic difference between written Chinese and written English is that English sorts things out by phonemes (or at least tried to before the Great Vowel Shift) and Chinese sorts things out word by word. There is little difference between a radio button labelled `Trees' and one labelled with the corresponding Chinese ideogram. Similarly, there would be little difference between a verbal interface using English and one using Chinese. Possibly none at all for some of my relatives. Whether one reads faster in a language based on words as a unit instead of phonemes has virtually nothing to do with how readily a verbal interface, as opposed to an iconic interface, communicates functionality to the user. To the extent that a strictly iconic interface can `universally' convey functionality, it must rely only on relationships that are `universally' understood, and which are expressible in some compatible graphical form. Of course, the smaller the universe the easier this is to accomplish, and (within that smaller scope) the more powerful and transparent that interface is. Thus, for example, the Mac's interface embodies a grammar (a relatively European grammar) which is simple enough for many people to pick up more or less on the fly. Its (or rather Xerox's) great insight was realizing that most of the things one wants to do on a computer are quite ordinary, and therefore essentially like something else with which we are already familiar, such as, but not necessarily restricted to, actions we routinely engage on at desktops, trashcans, filing cabinets, folders, etc. (I would prefer baseball myself. It has everything the desktop does and a great deal more on the side. Pinch hitters, umpires, relief pitchers, foul balls, stolen bases. What a senior project. We're talking real computer science here. Probably have to be multitasking, though. Or soccer --- even more universally accessible. But both may be sexist. Sexist? Sex --- I can see the ad campaign now. How universal can you get? But I digress....). It is primarily the relatively simple, transparent, and inflexible grammar of that interface, and not whether it uses an icon for a floppy disk instead of the set of characters "Floppy Disk", that makes it so accessible to many people, and paradoxically, such a trial for people who prefer non-iconic interfaces. While some of the latter folk might also complain that many icons are obscure and non-intuitive, so what? Why should we expect anything else? Think of such icons as mnemonics, instead of as documentation in their own right. I admit that many purveyors of graphical interfaces are themselves to blame for pushing the belief that icons are self-documenting. But so what if they aren't? In WordPerfect, Alt-F3 means `Reveal Codes'. This is transparent? Most of the icons on the Word for Windows ruler bar might as well BE Chinese ideograms as far as I'm concerned, but once you know what they do they serve as fairly effective reminders which require little precious screen real estate. I'm not actually a Word for Windows user* (though I've played one on TV). My wife uses WfW in her work and I've indirectly become quite familiar with it. We have spent significant corporate funds on third party books explicating the intricacies of WfW in order to penetrate the dense thickets of its interface and persuade it to heel to professional requirements. Once mastered, the iconic interface is quite nice to use. But for the novice, expecially the demanding novice, it can be just as intimidating as the MSDOS prompt. * I use TeX myself --- in case anyone gets the radical idea from reading this that I think graphical interfaces are the greatest thing since sliced bread. I never did figure out on my own how to change the name of a Mac icon. Stupid, hunh? I kept looking for something in the Menus. Where is that documented anyway? )> )>however, there are situations in which people have notorious difficulty )>understanding information presented textually; qualitative information ])>is foremost amoung these. Here a graphic display can be very helpful. )> )>Realize that people may be able to find pictures which they are )>very accustomed to faster than they are able to read the corresponding )>words in a box, but the words in a box approach is immensely more )>flexible and is more robust when novel concepts must be communicated. )> )>Jim Penny ) ) Damn right. Now when I return home, I don't look up street name ) and number anymore. ) Excuse my impartial ignorance, Yan, but what do you do instead? )-YX -- Life would be so much easier if we could just look at the source code. -- Charles Cleveland, School of Physics, Ga Tech, Atlanta, GA 30332-0430 uucp: ...!gatech!prism!ph274cc INTERNET: ph274cc@prism.gatech.edu
drraymond@watdragon.waterloo.edu (Darrell Raymond) (04/07/91)
In article <10292@pitt.UUCP>, grefen@sun14.cs.pitt.edu (Gregory Grefenstette) writes: > > I'm doing work on hypertext visual interfaces and I > would like to be able to prove what seems evident to me, > that is, that people can scan information presented > in a visual image-based form FASTER than in a plain > textual form. Before you show that pictures are faster or better than text, it might be wise to consider if you even know what the line of demarcation is between the two. I wouldn't hope to find a definitive answer anytime soon, mind you; this problem been a topic of intense debate for philosophers, art historians, psychologists, and students of literature for many years. However, considering it will be a reasonable way to sharpen your own notions. If you want to learn something about the topic, rather than simply look for evidence supporting your preconceptions, I suggest you start with Nelson Goodman's "Languages of Art". Essentially, Goodman divides languages into notational and analog classes. Notational languages are systems of discrete symbols with discrete referents - programming languages, for instance. Analog languages are systems of dense symbols with dense referents - like paintings. Analog languages use symbol systems in which all differences matter (i.e., brushstrokes) to express domains in which all differences matter (i.e., emotion). The notation/analog distinction has several advantages over the less precise and more subjective terms "picture" and "text". I've just completed a paper proposing the use of Goodman's notions for evaluating visual programming languages, entitled "Characterizing Visual Notations" (sumitted to the IEEE workshop on visual languages). I'm willing to send a draft copy to people who are interested in reading more about Goodman. -Darrell Raymond drraymond@daisy.uwaterloo.ca
adam@visix.com (04/07/91)
In article <jpenny.670886764@s.ms.uky.edu>, jpenny@ms.uky.edu (Jim Penny) writes: > (stuff) First, edit the goddamn newsgroups line. Second, you don't know what you're talking about. One small note about Chinese: try inventing a written language for one billion people who speak, say, a dozen mutually incomprehensible dialects, with hundreds of variations. Extra credit: make your language independent of pronounciation drift. Can you say phonemes? Can you say alphabet? Can you say alphabet independent of phonemes? Everything happens for a reason. If you assume the reason is there, and look for it, you will become a smart person. I'm not here to explain every reason you missed. Adam
davidm@uunet.UU.NET (David S. Masterson) (04/08/91)
>>>>> On 4 Apr 91 22:03:55 GMT, hultquis@nas.nasa.gov (Jeff P. M. Hultquist) >>>>> said: Sneaky> Yes, this makes sense. I can process an image IN PARALLEL. I can see a Sneaky> picture of a horse and immediately I know it is a horse. Peter> Yes, and that's very nice. But what does the picture _mean_? "Rent Peter> your horse here"? "Horse crossing"? "Don't forget to feed the horse"? Peter> "The horse is a large quadruped ruminant mammal"? davidm> Of course this depends on the representation of the horse in the davidm> picture and the context around the picture. For instance: davidm> ... davidm> 4. This one shows the problem with language because I don't have any davidm> context for the word "ruminant" (I didn't look it up). I think an davidm> intelligently designed picture would convey the meaning to me. Jeff> I find it difficult to believe that the power of text can be ever Jeff> approached by 'point-and-grunt' user interfaces. Text gives us the Jeff> power to develop and name abstract concepts; icons don't do this so Jeff> well. Ah, but you're only thinking in terms of an iconic language. Is this all there is to a hypermedia language? Also, no one is going to understand all abstractions no matter how it is explained to them. Even in textual languages, we rely on things called "dictionary", "thesaurus", "encyclopedia", and so on when there are terms we don't understand. Nothing says that like concepts could not exist in other languages (like an iconic language). Also, remember how you learn a new language. You start by relating what you perceive as concepts in the new language to like concepts in some language you know. Eventually, though, you replace the reliance on the old language by directly working in the new language. Is there anything that says you can only do this with written/spoken languages? -- ==================================================================== David Masterson Consilium, Inc. (415) 691-6311 640 Clyde Ct. uunet!cimshop!davidm Mtn. View, CA 94043 ==================================================================== "If someone thinks they know what I said, then I didn't say it!"
davidm@uunet.UU.NET (David S. Masterson) (04/08/91)
>>>>> On 5 Apr 91 21:26:04 GMT, jpenny@ms.uky.edu (Jim Penny) said: Jim> In any event, this is a detour from the original writer who claimed Jim> that people could invariably process pictures faster than text: Jim> 2) If pictures are inherently superior, consider the following series Jim> of questions: Jim> a) I will select at random a word from the dictionary: Jim> you may draw as many pictures as you would like, but no letters, Jim> to convey that word to a third party. Will this be easy? Jim> b) I will select at random a word from the dictionary; Jim> you may draw as many letters as you want to convey the word to Jim> a third party. Will this be easy? Probably an unfair test as its heavily weighted in favor of text. Let's even it up a little. Suppose you were trying to convey the word to 100 people, all of whom spoke/wrote a different language, and you had to convey the meaning to >80% of the people. Now would (a) or (b) be easier?? -- ==================================================================== David Masterson Consilium, Inc. (415) 691-6311 640 Clyde Ct. uunet!cimshop!davidm Mtn. View, CA 94043 ==================================================================== "If someone thinks they know what I said, then I didn't say it!"
sfp@mars.ornl.gov (Phil Spelt) (04/10/91)
(LOTS of stuff deleated) >3) What does the following picture mean? > > > _ _ > / \ / \ > / \ / \ > \ / \ / > \_/ \_/ > ---------------------- > > (hint: it is seen in my kitchen) > It appears on my dishwasher, and means heat dry! IMHO, the above picture really IS part of a parlor game. This whole issue is wasting bandwidth, because the fundamental issue is not being addredded: *WHAT* information is to be ocnveyed? Pictures are fine for *SOME* things. Moreover, the problem with the above "picture" is that the *CONTEXT* is missing!Properly drawn (I recognize the limitatins of an ASCIIgram!) and seen on a dishwasher, most people would be able to recognize what that symbol means. A good esample of the *PROPER* (IMHO) use of pictures is in the road/highway symbols used to convey information: People crossing, deer crossing, the infamous "banned" symbol, table utensils for diners, and on and on and on . . . The point is, that these symbols, *IN THEIR PROPER CONTEXT*, provide lots of information which is not dependent on ANY language, and which can communicate to people who speak a variety of languages! Will this (IMHO) *DEFINITIVE* analysis end this discussion??? Probably not (IMHO) 8=) . ============================================================================= MIND. A mysterious form of matter secreted by the brain. Its chief activity consists in the endeavor to asscertain its own nature, the futility of the attempt being due to the fact that it has nothing but itself to know itself with. -- Ambrose Bierce ============================================================================= Phil Spelt, Cognitive Systems & Human Factors Group sfp@epm.ornl.gov ============================================================================ Any opinions expressed or implied are my own, IF I choose to own up to them. ============================================================================
mk3c+@andrew.cmu.edu (Melinda J. Klump) (04/16/91)
Jeff writes:
*****
I find it difficult to believe that the power of text can be
ever approached by 'point-and-grunt' user interfaces. Text
gives us the power to develop and name abstract concepts;
icons don't do this so well.
--
--
Jeff Hultquist
*****
then what do you call mathematics? :-)
michael j pastor iii
guest on melinda's accountmk3c+@andrew.cmu.edu (Melinda J. Klump) (04/16/91)
Scott McGregor Asks: 1) Is, as is the authors claimed above, a pictorial programming language "*equally* acssible to users from all linguistic backgrounds"? Or does it skew the field the other way (i.e. against Indo-European language users)? I think it has to do more with cultural connotations of pictures rather than the language behind the culture. 2) Is the concept of a variable really more difficult to users of ideographic language users? How are other mathematical uses of variables taught? Does mathematical literacy negate this alleged deficit? When you think of numbers (and +/-* type symbols) as one language, and letters another, this conflict is lessened. If we only had numbers to work with when trying to form a mathematical formula and couldn't use letters to represent variables, then we would have a problem. Which leads into your question on meaningless strings... 3) If the availability of meaningless strings is the key to use of variables, why is it so important to choose meaningful names for variables instead of nonsense or conventionally meaningless names such as "X"? It isn't "so important" but it lessens one step in translation. If I told you that a + b = c and I told you that red + blue = purple, which one would you understand faster/easier/more meaningfully? (This same equation could be used totally pictorally using squares of red and blue and purple for example) 4) Would you like to use such a pictographic programming language? Why or why not? Inquiring minds want to know... No more than I would LISP, which I am currently learning, and which I believe is entirely bogged down in words' meanings. Which shows that the pre-conceived "meanings" of the strings gets in the way of my learning and implenting the language, much like the chinese problem, except this is the indo-european version. There is also no known universal pictorial language that can express the same number of basic concepts that exist in English or Chinese ( or any other language type) that wouldn't make my task twice as hard to learn a language that could be expressed in a language I already use as my basis for communication. I would have to learn the pictorial language first, then the programming that uses it. An ideal language/alphabet would be one that combined aspects of both: for example as one that does this somewhat, Sanskrit I believe uses a horizontal line (icon) to represent the root/basis of a word, with consonants below the line and vowels above. Using that rule alone, I could semi-decipher Sanskrit a lot more than than I could English that has no universal visual key like that: all the vowels look different and can be placed anywhere. That also brings up the concept of dimensions with language: Sanskrit utilizes a horizontal and vertical axis to express itself. An icon-string hybrid language would also have to utilize such to give it enough flexibility to be representative/useful. One could visualize a sheet of graph paper with the narrative/programming beginning either in the center or one of the corners and continuing in whatever other directions thereafter. As an example: We are programming in the hybrid language on a graph with the axis in the center of the paper/screen. The upper left corner defines the variables, the more global, the closer to the center. Functions are in the upper left, global variables centralized again. The "body" (an example of present visual keys in a non-visual language today) is in the lower left. Programming in this fashion allows us to program non-sequentially if we want to. Visual clues and language do/can not limit themselves to one dimension Scott McGregor As a user and not a programmer observing this discussion: I use Macs a lot. They are very easy to use using windows and icons. But I can't use my macintosh without the words (under/with) the icons to explain which sub-set I am using. I have about 10 art programs in my files, and I use different programs for different pieces (depending on what I want to do). I save all my programs on one disk/folder/storage area and my art on another. It is easy to sort out all of my files using pictures within pictures (icons in folders in folders for example) using a nesting or branching looking process/set-up visually. I have 25 pieces of art in one file, 7 being A program, 8 being B, 3 - C, 4 - D, etc. All art programs have universally (for the most part all types of programs) picked an icon to represent a "document" : a page of paper with a corner folded down. Then I can sort out my programs from my documents. I couldn't however, sort out my A documents from my B documents based on that alone. So the programmers have sub-iconed each icon with an icon inside to represent that it was an A program that created it, or a B document, etc. One thing I have come across as a difficulty though is a "generic art " or "pict" document: it has no sub-icon, just the icon of "document". So consequently, I cannot tell that it is an art document by looking at it. Now if all art programs adopted a universal sub-icon that showed it was an art document first, then they used a sub-sub-icon to show what program created it, my life would be a lot easier. Nesting and branching is the key to happiness :-) That is my example/problem/boon with icons so far. michael j pastor iii guest on melinda's account
uselton@nas.nasa.gov (Samuel P. Uselton) (04/17/91)
Michael writes: >Jeff writes: >> >>***** >>I find it difficult to believe that the power of text can be >>ever approached by 'point-and-grunt' user interfaces. Text >>gives us the power to develop and name abstract concepts; >>icons don't do this so well. >> >>Jeff Hultquist >>***** > > >then what do you call mathematics? :-) > >michael j pastor iii >guest on melinda's account ?!? Mathematics is very far from being a purely iconic language. Textual languages are distinguished by (among other things) a sophisticated syntax, sensitive to the ordering of the symbols and often requiring punctuation. Mathematical notation qualifies on both counts. Whether the symbols used are phonetically associated with their pronunciation is less relevant to this discussion of use in a computer interface. Typing in the formula I want is much quicker than selecting buttons, if I'm doing more than a 4 function calculator can handle. Iconic interfaces have some strengths. The are particularly useful for new, unsophisticated (uninitiated?) users - people who don't know the technical jargon. They can easily provide a small set of commands that satisfy a large fraction of needs, and can be constrained to prevent many "new-user" errors. Menus accomplish much the same purpose, in a more language dependent way. Text based interfaces are more flexible. They (typically) permit a larger vocabulary of commands. They allow a wider range of syntactic glue than is available with point and click. They may also be faster to use for the people who are sufficiently expert. If you are talking about POWER of an interface, command/text wins. If you are talking about EASE of use BY A NOVICE or by some one satisfied with a fixed set of capabilities, or someone who is an infrequent user of the system, then a well designed point-and-click may win. (IMHO of course.) Sam Uselton uselton@nas.nasa.gov ex-prof (CS) & sometime mathematician employed by CSC working for NASA (Ames) speaking for myself
mcgregor@hemlock.Atherton.COM (Scott McGregor) (04/18/91)
In article <oc2hMlK00Vpb4JPVZR@andrew.cmu.edu> michael j pastor iii write: <34980@athertn.Atherton.COM> Distribution: na Organization: Class of '91, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA Lines: 115 In-Reply-To: <34980@athertn.Atherton.COM> Scott McGregor Asks: > 1) Is, as is the authors claimed above, a pictorial programming language > "*equally* acssible to users from all linguistic backgrounds"? Or does > it skew the field the other way (i.e. against Indo-European language > users) >> I think it has to do more with cultural connotations of pictures rather >> than the language behind the culture. The authors (Cox & Pietrzykowski) claimed pictorial programming languages were superior, not because the pictures were well chosen, but because the pictures don't require the use of the concept of variables, which they claim is a difficult concept in languages with ideograms since it is not possible to compose "a meaningless string" to represent a variable. This is the question I would like to hear comments on. Was this posting meant to agree with them, or disagree with them? > 2) Is the concept of a variable really more difficult to users of ideographic > language users? How are other mathematical uses of variables taught? > Does mathematical literacy negate this alleged deficit? >> When you think of numbers (and +/-* type symbols) as one language, and >> letters another, this conflict is lessened. If we only had numbers to >> work with when trying to form a mathematical formula and couldn't use >> letters to represent variables, then we would have a problem. That is exactly the author's point--that iconic languages don't have letters, so variables can't be represented. The author's suggestion is that algebraic notation is a second language, but a second language more akin to Indo-European languages, and thus easier for Indo-Europeans to master. But is this true? Does the average asian-language speaker have more difficulty learning symbolic algebra? What evidence supports or refutes the authors' suggestions > 3) If the availability of meaningless strings is the key to use of variables, > why is it so important to choose meaningful names for variables instead of > nonsense or conventionally meaningless names such as "X"? > It isn't "so important" but it lessens one step in translation. If I > told you that a + b = c and I told you that red + blue = purple, which > one would you understand faster/easier/more meaningfully? (This same > equation could be used totally pictorally using squares of red and blue > and purple for example) C&P seem to claim that "a", "b" and "c" are better variables because they carry no predefined meanings. "Red", "Blue", "Purple" clearly carry some meaning from the color world. I would suspect that in a program about joining colored areas, choosing names such as "red-color-area" and "blue-color-area" or even simply "red" or "blue" would be prefered to the use of "a" and "b" as variables in such a program. But this is conflict with the statement C&P make that variables are more naturally composed from meaningless nonsense strings. In other words, don't we prefer variables to carry some meaning in practice, and not merely act as placeholders? Scott McGregor Atherton Technology mcgregor@atherton.com
ken@csis.dit.csiro.au (Ken Yap) (04/21/91)
>> 2) Is the concept of a variable really more difficult to users of ideographic >> language users? How are other mathematical uses of variables taught? >> Does mathematical literacy negate this alleged deficit? > >... > >That is exactly the author's point--that iconic languages don't have >letters, so variables can't be represented. The author's suggestion is >that algebraic notation is a second language, but a second language more >akin to Indo-European languages, and thus easier for Indo-Europeans to >master. But is this true? Does the average asian-language speaker >have more difficulty learning symbolic algebra? What evidence supports >or refutes the authors' suggestions While Chinese and some other Asian languages are ideographic, in practice this has no bearing on the discussion. Childrens' magazines in Chinese often have running features illustrating the evolution of various characters from the picture of the object represented, e.g. the character for door evolved from a drawing of the gates, etc. The average Chinese reader is aware of the pictoral origins of Chinese, but when Chinese is used in everyday life, it is just as symbolic as a Western language, because civilization relies a lot on abstraction. The phrase for "square root", for example, is literally "square root". It was a Westerner who pointed out to me that the Chinese phrase for "immediately" is literally "on horse". I had been making verbal exchanges with that token all my life without stopping to think about its origins, just like the average Frenchman doesn't stop to analyse "tout suite". So I would not expect any cultural dis/advantage for handling symbols. Ideographic languages may be faster to read, I don't know.
aipdc@castle.ed.ac.uk (Paul Crowley) (04/22/91)
In article <1991Apr21.072316.19144@csis.dit.csiro.au> ken@csis.dit.csiro.au (Ken Yap) writes: >just like the average Frenchman doesn't stop to analyse >"tout suite". In fact the phrase "I couldn't care less" has become so habitual that people often say "I could care less" to mean the same thing without realising that they've just reversed the meaning. ____ \/ o\ Paul Crowley aipdc@castle.ed.ac.uk \ / /\__/ Part straight. Part gay. All queer. \/