wex@dali.pws.bull.com (Buckaroo Banzai) (08/29/90)
In article <BRUCEC.90Aug23142457@phoebus.phoebus.labs.tek.com> brucec%phoebus.phoebus.labs.tek.com@RELAY.CS.NET (Bruce Cohen;;50-662;LP=A;) writes:
I mean a map which is intended to show the geographic distribution of some
non-geographic entity. For instance, maps of the food products produced by
various regions, or usage of energy. I honestly don't know where I got the
term, and I can't find a definition anywhere. I suppose that it's a relict
of 5th grade geography class (which was much longer ago than I like to
remember). The closest term I can find is "special-subject map". Is that
familiar?
No, but your example is familiar. At CHI this year, Ben Schneiderman and I
were discussing using just these kinds of maps to help people with the "lost
in hyperspace" problem that hypertext users have.
I think this issue is closely related to the semantic-space issues because
in order to construct special-subject maps, one has to have an idea of the
background against which the data is taken. This is generally hard, but
implementationally easier in that one is usually not working with a totally
random data set. Instead, you're working with the contents of a knowledge-
or object-base which you know something about (e.g. it might be an office
document archive, or a CASE database).
This makes it possible to create backgrounds which would be cognitive (and
system) artifacts associated with regions in cyberspace. Alternatively, you
can make them a property of the view. What is "the view" you ask? Don't
ask - it's another whole chapter. :-)
--
--Alan Wexelblat phone: (508)294-7485
Bull Worldwide Information Systems internet: wex@pws.bull.com
"Politics is Comedy plus Pretense."