perlman@wanginst.EDU (Gary Perlman) (07/25/87)
The following is an abstract of a paper for the 1987 Human Factors Society meeting in New York. It is also available as Wang Institute technical report TR-87-08. An Axiomatic Model of Information Presentation Gary Perlman Wang Institute Tyngsboro, MA 01879 USA The goal of information layout is to physically display information to reinforce the underlying structure of the information. In this paper, I describe an axiomatic model of information layout. The model has three levels: (1) a device-independent representation for structured information, (2) a set of axioms (or rules) relating information structure with display attributes, (3) a set of device dependent display attributes used to distinguish differences and show similarities in information structure. The model infers, using logical deductions from its axioms, how display attributes should be used to show the structure of information. A prototype software system exists that allows interactive design and evaluation of screen layouts. Future research is planned to develop an expert system to aid in the automatic design of layouts, and to refine the prototype into a usable system. -- Gary Perlman Wang Institute Tyngsboro, MA 01879 (617) 649-9731 UUCP: decvax!wanginst!perlman CSNET: perlman@wanginst
wex@milano.UUCP (07/27/87)
In article <1361@wanginst.EDU>, perlman@wanginst.EDU (Gary Perlman) writes: > The goal of information layout is to physically display information to > reinforce the underlying structure of the information. In this paper, > I describe an axiomatic model of information layout. The model has > three levels: (1) a device-independent representation for structured > information [I hope I haven't abstracted out too much context.] Gary, I'm curious. I can see how you could fairly easily achieve a significant level of device independence, but how about domain-dependence? For example, there are dozens of "box & arrow"-type languages, each of which uses slightly different representation based on the domain under consideration. EG: KR languages use arrows that go the opposite way from those used in object-oriented inheritance graphs. The information is similarly structured (boxes, arrows, hierarchies, dependencies, etc.), but the representation is governed by the domain of concern. Comments welcomed. -- Alan Wexelblat ARPA: WEX@MCC.COM UUCP: {seismo, harvard, gatech, pyramid, &c.}!sally!im4u!milano!wex "Oh well, a touch of grey, Kinda suits you anyway."