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Cognitive Dimensions
Cognitive dimensions or cognitive dimensions of notations are design principles for notations, user interfaces and programming languages, described by researcher Thomas R.G. Green and further researched with Marian Petre. The dimensions can be used to evaluate the usability of an existing ''information artifact'', or as heuristics to guide the design of a new one, and are useful in Human-Computer Interaction design. Cognitive dimensions are designed to provide a lightweight approach to analyse the quality of a design, rather than an in-depth, detailed description. They provide a common vocabulary for discussing many factors in notation, UI or programming language design. Also, cognitive dimensions help in exploring the space of possible designs through ''design maneuvers'', changes intended to improve the design along one dimension. List of the cognitive dimensions Thomas Green originally defined 14 cognitive dimensions: ; Abstraction gradient : What are the minimum and maxi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Notation
In linguistics and semiotics, a notation is a system of graphics or symbols, characters and abbreviated expressions, used (for example) in artistic and scientific disciplines to represent technical facts and quantities by convention. Therefore, a notation is a collection of related symbols that are each given an arbitrary meaning, created to facilitate structured communication within a domain knowledge or field of study. Standard notations refer to general agreements in the way things are written or denoted. The term is generally used in technical and scientific areas of study like mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology, but can also be seen in areas like business, economics and music. Written communication Writing systems * Phonographic writing systems, by definition, use symbols to represent components of auditory language, i.e. speech, which in turn refers to things or ideas. The two main kinds of phonographic notational system are the alphabet and the syllabary. Some ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Role (computer Science)
Role-oriented programming as a form of computer programming aims at expressing things in terms that are analogous to human conceptual understanding of the world. This should make programs easier to understand and maintain. The main idea of role-oriented programming is that humans think in terms of roles. This claim is often backed up by examples of social relations. For example, a student attending a class and the same student at a party are the same person, yet that person plays two different roles. In particular, the interactions of this person with the outside world depend on his current role. The roles typically share features, e.g., the intrinsic properties of being a person. This sharing of properties is often handled by the delegation mechanism. In the older literature and in the field of databases, it seems that there has been little consideration for the context in which roles interplay with each other. Such a context is being established in newer role- and aspect-ori ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Human–computer Interaction
Human–computer interaction (HCI) is research in the design and the use of computer technology, which focuses on the interfaces between people (users) and computers. HCI researchers observe the ways humans interact with computers and design technologies that allow humans to interact with computers in novel ways. A device that allows interaction between human being and a computer is known as a "Human-computer Interface (HCI)". As a field of research, human–computer interaction is situated at the intersection of computer science, behavioral sciences, design, media studies, and several other fields of study. The term was popularized by Stuart K. Card, Allen Newell, and Thomas P. Moran in their 1983 book, ''The Psychology of Human–Computer Interaction.'' The first known use was in 1975 by Carlisle. The term is intended to convey that, unlike other tools with specific and limited uses, computers have many uses which often involve an open-ended dialogue between the user and t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Usability
Usability can be described as the capacity of a system to provide a condition for its users to perform the tasks safely, effectively, and efficiently while enjoying the experience. In software engineering, usability is the degree to which a software can be used by specified consumers to achieve quantified objectives with effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction in a quantified context of use. The object of use can be a software application, website, book, tool, machine, process, vehicle, or anything a human interacts with. A usability study may be conducted as a primary job function by a ''usability analyst'' or as a secondary job function by designers, technical writers, marketing personnel, and others. It is widely used in consumer electronics, communication, and knowledge transfer objects (such as a cookbook, a document or online help) and mechanical objects such as a door handle or a hammer. Usability includes methods of measuring usability, such as needs analysis and t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alan Blackwell
Alan F. Blackwell (born 1962) is a New Zealand-British cognition scientist and professor at the Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge, known for his work on diagrammatic representation, on data and language modelling, investment modelling, and end-user software engineering. Biography Born in Wellington, New Zealand, Blackwell attended Newlands College, and received his BA in Electronic Engineering from the University of Auckland, and studied Comparative Religion and Medieval History at Massey University. Subsequently he obtained his MA in Computer Science from the Victoria University of Wellington, and later on his PhD in Psychology at Cambridge University. After completing his MA, Blackwell started working at the New Zealand software company Progeni Systems Limited. In the UK he was a systems analyst for Cambridge Consultants Limited, where he designed real-time diagnostic and encryption systems. He later moved to Hitachi, where he worked at its Europe Advanced Software C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Magical Number Seven, Plus Or Minus Two
"The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information" is one of the most highly cited papers in psychology. It was written by the cognitive psychologist George A. Miller of Harvard University's Department of Psychology and published in 1956 in ''Psychological Review''. It is often interpreted to argue that the number of objects an average human can hold in short-term memory is 7 ± 2. This has occasionally been referred to as '' Miller's law''. Miller's article In his article, Miller discussed a coincidence between the limits of one-dimensional absolute judgment and the limits of short-term memory. In a one-dimensional absolute-judgment task, a person is presented with a number of stimuli that vary on one dimension (e.g., 10 different tones varying only in pitch) and responds to each stimulus with a corresponding response (learned before). Performance is nearly perfect up to five or six different stimuli but declines as the numbe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Software Visualization
Software visualization or software visualisation refers to the visualization of information of and related to software systems—either the architecture of its source code or metrics of their runtime behavior—and their development process by means of static, interactive or animated 2-D or 3-D visual representations of their structure, execution, behavior, and evolution. Software system information Software visualization uses a variety of information available about software systems. Key information categories include: * implementation artifacts such as source codes, * software metric data from measurements or from reverse engineering, * traces that record execution behavior, * software testing data (e.g., test coverage) * software repository data that tracks changes. Objectives The objectives of software visualization are to support the understanding of software systems (i.e., its structure) and algorithms (e.g., by animating the behavior of sorting algorithms) as well ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shotgun Surgery
Shotgun surgery is an antipattern in software development and occurs where a developer adds features to an application codebase which span a multiplicity of implementors or implementations in a single change. This is common practice in many programming scenarios, as a great amount of programming effort is usually expended on adding new features to increase the value of programming assets. As a consequence, these new features may require adding code in several places simultaneously where the code itself looks very similar and may only have slight variations. Owing to the fast-paced nature of commercial software development, there may not be sufficient time to remodel (or refactor) a system to support the new features trivially. As a consequence, the practice of copy-and-paste programming is prevalent; the code is written in a single place then simply copied to all other places where that implementation is required (with any required changes applied in-place). This practice is g ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Homoiconicity
In computer programming, homoiconicity (from the Greek words ''homo-'' meaning "the same" and ''icon'' meaning "representation") is a property of some programming languages. A language is homoiconic if a program written in it can be manipulated as data using the language, and thus the program's internal representation can be inferred just by reading the program itself. This property is often summarized by saying that the language treats "code as data". In a homoiconic language, the primary representation of programs is also a data structure in a primitive type of the language itself. This makes metaprogramming easier than in a language without this property: reflection in the language (examining the program's entities at runtime) depends on a single, homogeneous structure, and it does not have to handle several different structures that would appear in a complex syntax. Homoiconic languages typically include full support of syntactic macros, allowing the programmer to express tr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Deutsch Limit
The Deutsch limit is an aphorism about the information density of visual programming languages originated by L. Peter Deutsch that states: :The problem with visual programming is that you can’t have more than 50 visual primitives on the screen at the same time. The term was made up by Fred Lakin, after Deutsch made the following comment at a talk on visual programming by Scott Kim and Warren Robinett: "Well, this is all fine and well, but the problem with visual programming languages is that you can’t have more than 50 visual primitives on the screen at the same time. How are you going to write an operating system?" The primitives in a visual language are the separate graphical elements used to build a program, and having more of them available at the same time allows the programmer to read more information. This ''limit'' is sometimes cited as an example of the advantage of textual over visual languages, pointing out the greater information density of text, and posing a d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Conway's Law
Conway's law is an adage that states organizations design systems that mirror their own communication structure. It is named after the computer programmer Melvin Conway, who introduced the idea in 1967. His original wording was: The law is based on the reasoning that in order for a product to function, the authors and designers of its component parts must communicate with each other in order to ensure compatibility between the components. Therefore, the technical structure of a system will reflect the social boundaries of the organizations that produced it, across which communication is more difficult. In colloquial terms, it means complex products end up "shaped like" the organizational structure they are designed in or designed for. The law is applied primarily in the field of software architecture, though Conway directed it more broadly and its assumptions and conclusions apply to most technical fields. Variations Eric S. Raymond, an open-source advocate, restated Conway's law ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cognitive Walkthrough
The cognitive walkthrough method is a usability inspection method used to identify usability issues in interactive systems, focusing on how easy it is for new users to accomplish tasks with the system. A cognitive walkthrough is task-specific, whereas heuristic evaluation takes a holistic view to catch problems not caught by this and other usability inspection methods. The method is rooted in the notion that users typically prefer to learn a system by using it to accomplish tasks, rather than, for example, studying a manual. The method is prized for its ability to generate results quickly with low cost, especially when compared to usability testing, as well as the ability to apply the method early in the design phases before coding even begins (which happens less often with usability testing). Introduction A cognitive walkthrough starts with a task analysis that specifies the sequence of steps or actions required by a user to accomplish a task, and the system responses to those acti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
