An entity-based database user interface

Cattell, R. G. G.

doi:10.1145/582250.582273

Cited by 33 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…In Fogg's Living in a Database System, for example, users from inside an entity-relationship tuple can answer queries by examining the database from that tuple's perspectives. Fogg bases his interface on the ideas of Cattell (1980), who describes an interface in which each frame contains a list of adjacent nodes for the user to explore. Herot's (1980) spatial data management system (SDMS) presents information graphically.…”

Section: Information Linksmentioning

confidence: 99%

To link or not to link? Empirical guidance for the design of nonlinear text systems

Gray

Shasha

1989

Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers

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We compared the effectiveness of two versions of the NetBook data model for nonlinear textone with links and one without. Users who accessed information through specifications based on properties and values alone performed better than users who employed such specifications as well as hypertext links. Protocol analysis revealed that hypertext links were useful when a subject's specifications were unspecific but correct. However, hypertext could rarely compensate for inaccurate specifications. Design recommendations are included.In this study, we use controlled experimentation and protocol analysis for two purposes: 0) to compare linked and nonlinked versions of the NetBook data model in order to contribute to the current debate over user's categorization errors, searching via links, and getting lost in nonlinear systems, and (2) to evaluate the effectiveness of the NetBook knowledge exploration system (Shasha, 1985(Shasha, , 1986.The NetBook model is based on relational databases augmented with hierarchies on domains and hypertext. The user of information accesses sets of text fragments through menu selection of properties and values and then explores other fragments through hypertext links. The system attempts to linearize the set of fragments chosen by a query in a rational way (e.g., prerequisite information first). Data Organization, User Interface, and User ErrorsWe were concerned with two related aspects of information systems, both of which influence effectiveness: how the data are organized in the database and how easy the interface is to use.Canas, Safayeni, and Conrath (985) studied the organization of material in a filing system and found a retrieval success rate of over 90 %. They suggest that if we can understand how people classify and search for information in such manual systems of information storage, we should be able to design better automated informaThe NetBook system was implemented by LeahBeckman, Jose PerezCarballo, and Dana Birkby. We wish to thank them for all their help.

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Section: Information Linksmentioning

confidence: 99%

To link or not to link? Empirical guidance for the design of nonlinear text systems

Gray

Shasha

1989

Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers

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“…This first prototyping effort provided a browsing-oriented interface for end users who are not database experts (of the kind described, e.g., in [2,14,21,31,321). It was designed and implemented on an IBM PC/AT with enhanced color graphics capabilities and written in Pascal.…”

Section: Experimental Results and Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, they differ in the details associated with these concepts and the techniques they support to represent and apply them. Many aspects of the 3DIS are influenced by earlier work on the binary database models [l, 111, as well as database models that define a database as a collection of entities and interentity relationships (e.g., [8,13,14,15,22,33,371). Detailed discussion and comparison of these models, prominent work on semantic database models, and an analysis of the evolution of data modeling concepts can be found in [ 121, [24], [35], and [41].…”

Section: Related Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

The 3DIS: an extensible object-oriented information management environment

McLeod

1989

ACM Trans. Inf. Syst.

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The 3-Dimensional Information Space (3DIS) is an extensible object-oriented framework for information management. It is specifically oriented toward supporting the database requirements for dataintensive information system applications in which (1) information objects of various levels of abstraction and modalities must be accommodated, (2) descriptive and structural information (metadata) is rich and dynamic, and (3) users who are not database experts must be able to design, manipulate, and evolve databases. In response to these needs, the 3DIS provides an approach in which data and the descriptive information about data are handled uniformly in an extensible framework. The 3DIS provides a simple, geometric, and formal representation of data which forms a basis for understanding, defining, and manipulating databases. Several prototype implementations based upon the 3DIS have been designed and implemented and are in experimental use.

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“…An early example of this approach is the interface designed and implemented by Cattell, at Xerox [7]. The interface is to an entity-relationship database [lo], and it features a set of directives for scanning a network of entities and relationships, and presenting each entity, together with its context, in a display called frame.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

ViewFinder: an object browser

D’Atri

Motro

Tarantino

1999

Information and Software Technology

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ViewFinder is a graphical tool for browsing in databases that provides a flexible, yet intuitive environment for exploratory searches. The design approach has been to provide maximumfunctionality and generality without sacrificing simplici/y. The constructs of ViewFinder's external model are essentially object-oriented: class and token objects, membership relationships between tokens and classes, generalization relationships between classes, inheritance, and so on. This external model is based on an internal model which resembles a semantic network. Such a network may be extracted from a variety of data models, including object-oriented, entity-relationship and extended relational models. This architecture gives ViewFinder a large degree of model independence. The main construct of the external model are displays of objects (either classes or tokens), called views. Commands are available for efficient traversal of the database, displaying views of any class or token. To speed up repetitive searches, views may be synchronized: the user sets up several views, linked in a tree-like structure, so that when the information displayed in the root view is modified (e.g. scrolled by the user), the contents of the other views change automatically. Additional commands are available to search, order, aggregate and select the information displayed in a view, thus providing a simple query facility. 0 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights resewed.

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An entity-based database user interface

Cited by 33 publications

References 14 publications

To link or not to link? Empirical guidance for the design of nonlinear text systems

To link or not to link? Empirical guidance for the design of nonlinear text systems

The 3DIS: an extensible object-oriented information management environment

ViewFinder: an object browser

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