The role of excursions in interactive systems

Darlington, Jared L.; Dzida, Wolfgang; Herda, Siegfried

doi:10.1016/s0020-7373(83)80024-8

Cited by 24 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…A further elaboration of the delayed definition feature in SPECINT is the implementation of excursions [6]. Any break in computation at which the system requests some input from the user provides the opportunity for an excursion, or information-gathering tour, during which the user requests and receives help from the system as to which commands or functions might be applicable in the given situation and what their effects might be.…”

Section: Delayed Definitions and Excursionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Search direction by goal failure in goal-oriented programming

Darlington

1990

ACM Trans. Program. Lang. Syst.

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A new approach to goal-oriented programming is described, whereby the search for values of variables to satisfy a goal is invariably directed by that goal or by information provided by its failure. This goal-directed approach is in contrast to that employed by logic programming systems, which attempt to satisfy a goal that has failed by resatisfying an already tested goal, and which furthermore do this in a way determined solely by the order of facts and rules in the database and without reference to the goal that has failed. Proposed changes in the control structure of logic programs designed to improve their execution serve more to reduce the search space than to add goal direction. A goal-directed language that embodies the new approach is presented. It is at the same time a functional programming language and a specification interpreter for the direct execution and testing of functional specifications, and permits the user to write executable program descriptions in which some of the constituent functions are fully defined while other are 'merely' specified. The language has been successfully tested on exampled drawn from such fields as deductive question answering and problem solving, where it compares favorably with the logic programming languages

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Section: Delayed Definitions and Excursionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Search direction by goal failure in goal-oriented programming

Darlington

1990

ACM Trans. Program. Lang. Syst.

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“…Specifications based on state transition diagrams are most suitable for describing interactive human-computer interfaces largely because they represent time sequence explicitly, in contrast to BNF, in partitular, where it is implicit [12]. The state transition model has also been found useful in describing a user's mental model of an interactive computer system [4,IS]. Several investigators have proposed different specification nora-…”

Section: Overview Of the Speci~tion Techniquementioning

confidence: 99%

“…It also permits the application of human performance models to the specifications to obtain information about the user interfaces they describe before building them [1,15]. The specifications can be checked for certain undesirable properties of the user interface, such as almost-alike states [14], interactive deadlock [4], and character-level ambiguity [18]. Further benefits accrue if a prototype or mockup of the user interface of the proposed system can be constructed directly from the specification.…”

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confidence: 99%

Executable specifications for a human-computer interface

Jacob

1983

Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - CHI '83

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It is useful to be able to specify a proposed human-computer interface formally before building it, particularly if a mockup suitable for testing can be obtained directly from the specification. A specification technique for user interfaces, based on state transition diagrams, is introduced and then demonstrated for a secure message system application. An interpreter that executes the resulting specification ~s then described. Some problems that arise in specifying a user interface are addressed by particular features of the technique: To reduce the complexity of the developer's task, a user interface is divided into the semantic, syntactic, and lexical levels, and a separate executable specification is provided for each. A process of stepwise refinement of the syntactic specification, leading from an informal specification to an executable one is also presented. Since the state diagram notation is based on a nondeterministic model, constraints necessary to realize the system with a deterministic interpreter are given.Writing a formal specification of the user interface of a computer system before building it permits the interface designer to consider a variety of possible user interfaces and describe them precisely and compactly without actually having to code them. It also permits the application of human performance models to the specifications to obtain information about the user interfaces they describe before building them [1,15]. The specifications can be checked for certain undesirable properties of the user interface, such as almost-alike states [14], interactive deadlock [4], and character-level ambiguity [18]. Further benefits accrue if a prototype or mockup of the user interface of the proposed system can be constructed directly from the specification. Problems with the proposed user interface can then be identified early in the design process, when they are easier to fix. While many prcspective users will f_nd a formal specification of a proposed system difficult to understand, they will have much less trouble evaluating a mockup system and identifying deficiencies in its user interface, both through informal demonstrations and formal experiPermission to copy without fee all or part of this material is granted provided that the copies are not made or distributed for direct commercial advantage, the ACM copyright notice and the title of the publication and its date appear, and notice is given that copying is by permission of the Association for Computing Machinery. To copy otherwise, or to republish, requires a fee and/or specific permission.© 1983 ACM 0'89791-121-0/83/012/0028 $00.75 ments.This paper describes a specification technique for user-computer interfaces and its use in the development of a secure military message system. The specifications are executed interpretively to provide a working prototype of the system. The paper describes the specification technique by means of an example. Then, it shows the decomposition of both the design process and the specification itself into the semantic, ...

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On models and modelling in human-computer co-operation

Oberquelle

1984

Readings on Cognitive Ergonomics — Mind and Computers

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The role of excursions in interactive systems

Cited by 24 publications

References 3 publications

Search direction by goal failure in goal-oriented programming

Search direction by goal failure in goal-oriented programming

Executable specifications for a human-computer interface

On models and modelling in human-computer co-operation

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