Task-Analytic Design of Graphic Presentations
Abstract
BOZ is an automated graphic design and presentation system that designs graphics based on an analysis of the task for which a graphic is intended to support. When designing a graphic, BOZ aims to optimize two ways in which graphics help expedite human performance of information processing tasks: (a) allowing users to substitute simple perceptual inferences in place of more demanding logical inferences; and (b) streamlining users' search for needed information. BOZ analyzers a logical description of a task to be performed by a human user and designs a provably equivalent perceptual task by substituting perceptual inference steps in place of logical inferences in the task description. BOZ then designs and renders an accompanying graphic, encoding and structuring data in the graphic such that performance of each perceptual inference is supported and visual search is minimized. BOZ produces a graphic along with a perceptual procedure describing how to use the graphic to complete the task. A key feature of BOZ's task-analytic approach is that it is able to design different presentations of the same information customized to the requirements of different tasks. A second component of BOZ allows the logical and perceptual task descriptions to be directly used as cognitive simulations. The simulation component allows us to generate detailed theoretical predictions about the utility of any presentation with respect to a task.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 18, 1990
- Accession Number
- ADA242452
Entities
People
- Stephen M. Casner
Organizations
- Carnegie Mellon University