Cognitive Dimensions of Notations: Design Tools for Cognitive Technology

The Cognitive Dimensions of Notations framework has been created to assist the designers of notational systems and information artifacts to evaluate their designs with respect to the impact that they will have on the users of those designs. The framework emphasizes the design choices available to such designers, including characterization of the users activity, and the inevitable tradeoffs that will occur between potential design options. The resulting framework has been under development for over 10 years, and now has an active community of researchers devoted to it. This paper summarizes the current activity, especially the results of a one-day workshop devoted to Cognitive Dimensions in December 2000, and reviews the ways in which it applies to the field of Cognitive Technology.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2001
• Where: CT
• Authors: Alan F. Blackwell, Carol Britton, Anna Louise Cox, Thomas R. G. Green, Corin A. Gurr, Gada F. Kadoda, Maria Kutar, Martin Loomes, Chrystopher L. Nehaniv, Marian Petre, Chris Roast, Chris Roe, Allan Wong, R. Michael Young
• Keywords: Cognitive Dimensions, Cognitive Science, CT 2001, Notations Framework, Potential Design Options