User Interface Design
Contents
Short Introduction

New technologies provide the means to build superb new systems, as well as phenomenally ugly and awkward systems that still fully meet performance and functional requirements. There is a notable lack of adequate theoretical foundations in the area of interface design. Our research is aimed at closing this gap, and is exploring new approaches to a scientific understanding of basic issues of usability, representation, coordination, and value that arise in interface design and related areas, such as how to best display complex scientific information in multimedia; there is also some focus on distributed cooperative work and on formal representation. Techniques include ideas from algebraic semantics, cognitive science and semiotics, for structure, interaction, metaphor, and blending. For more detail, see the Short Summary of Algebraic Semiotics below, the Algebraic Semiotics homepage, publications in the Brief Annotated Bibliography below, and also the UCSD courses CSE 271 (graduate level) and CSE 171 (undergraduate level). Our most recent work places more emphasis on the direct integration of values with the entire design process; see the draft introduction to the book in progress Value-Driven Design, with Algebraic Semiotics, by Joseph Goguen and Fox Harrel; a draft outline of the whole book is also available.

Brief Annotated bibliography See also the Laboratory for Comparative Human Cognition homepage.

Algebraic Semiotics

Semiotics is the study of signs. Our research attempts to make this area more systematic, rigorous, and applicable, as well as to do justice to its social and cognitive foundations. Algebraic semiotics combines aspects of algebraic specification and social semiotics. It has been applied to information visualization, user interface design, the representation of mathematical proofs, multimedia narrative, virtual worlds, and metaphor generation, among other things. The course CSE 271 includes a relatively non-technical exposition of algebraic semiotic and many of its applications. More detailed technical information may be found in Semiotic Morphisms, Representations, and Blending for User Interface Design, Foundations for Active Multimedia Narrative: Semiotic spaces and structural blending, and An Introduction to Algebraic Semiotics, with Applications to User Interface Design. Results of this research were used in building the Kumo theorem proving system, along with ideas from narratology (the systematic study of narrative).

A basic concept is that of a semiotic morphism, which provides representations in one sign system (the target) for signs from another (the source). Semiotic morphisms can be partial, i.e., they do not necessarily have to preserve all of the signs or all the structure of the source system. The degree to which semiotic morphisms preserve various features provides a basis for comparing the quality of representations, and leads to an interesting study of trade-offs. Our most recent work places more emphasis on the direct integration of values with the entire design process.

To illustrate these ideas, consider proofs (in some fixed logical system) as forming a sign system; an extension of this system includes additional information to help with understanding proofs, such as motivation, background tutorials, and examples. Another sign system is given by website technology (XHTML, JavaScript, XML, etc.). Then representations of proofs as websites are morphisms from the first system (or its extension) to the second, and the orderings on semiotic morphisms compare aspects of the quality of such representations. Some website design principles, called the Tatami conventions, were extracted from our study and embodied in our Kumo tool, which combines proof assistant and website generation capabilities; it generates so-called "proofweb" data structures that use HTML, JavaScript, etc., which can then be viewed with any browser. For more details, see Web-based Support for Cooperative Software Engineering. Some other applications are discussed in Information Visualization and Semiotic Morphisms and in Steps towards a Design Theory for Virtual Worlds.

The "world famous" UC San Diego Semiotic Zoo contains a collection of semiotic morphisms, each an example of bad design arising through failure to preserve some relevant structure. (Notes: (1) The zoo still has one wing under construction; and (2) it won a "Creativity Award" from Art & Technology.)

Mathematical foundations is provided by the rather recent and very abstract field called "category theory" (it is not related to the area of psychology of the same name), by noting that sign systems together with semiotic morphisms form a category. Some modest additional axioms are satisfied, which leads to the notion of a 3/2-category. An appropriate notion of colimit for such categories has properties that make it suitable for studying the blending of sign systems, as explained in An Introduction to Algebraic Semiotics, with Applications to User Interface Design. See also Semiotic Morphisms, Representations, and Blending for User Interface Design, to see how hidden algebra extends algebraic semiotics to handle interaction. The papers Foundations for Active Multimedia Narrative: Semiotic spaces and structural blending and Information Visualization and Semiotic Morphisms include more intuitive introductions to many issues, and the webnote Semiotic Morphisms may be convenient. Much of our recent research on art and music and on qualia and consciousness is also related, as well as our work on blending and cognitive semantics.

Courses

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Last modified: Thu Dec 5 10:10:08 PST 2002